


Glad Man Singing

by bodiddleydarn



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Anal Sex, Dubious Consent, F/F, M/M, Making Out, Masturbation Interruptus, Masturbation in Shower, Mildly Dubious Consent, Okay not that slow, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-07-07 03:03:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15899583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodiddleydarn/pseuds/bodiddleydarn
Summary: After the twilight is banished, Shad is chosen for a very special mission: to gather Hyrule's scattered relics and bring them to Hyrule Castle for safe-keeping. Link, Hyrule's champion, is chosen as his guide.Shad-- introverted, self-conscious, anxious --carries a torch for the hero so bright, it can be seen from space; and can hardly believe his luck.





	1. ...And The Mouth Of The River Is Wide

**Author's Note:**

> LMAO THIS LITERALLY TOOK ME 12 YEARS TO WRITE  
> (summary will change as plot progresses)
> 
> I promised I'd write a Link/Shad epic for my friend forever and ever ago, and here it finally is. Well, the start of it, at least. I always keep my promises, Cris!
> 
> The worldbuilding for this fic will be a blend of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, but will predominately focus/exist in the TP-era of Hyrule and its surrounding lands.
> 
> Also, tagging/archiving this beast as Explicit this early on just so's I don't have to go back and change it in the future. I mean, it's me: I'm a filthmonger. It's gonna happen. I just have to get this pesky plot business out of the way for the first couple of chapters, or so.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the journey.

It wasn't every day that a royal courier showed up on his doorstep, bearing a summons from Queen Zelda.

Shad could count on one hand the number of times he'd actually been invited into the castle. The most he knew of the inside was what he'd seen as a child down in the kitchens, or in the servants' quarters.

Now, however, after showing his summons to the guards posted at the front doors, a prim looking young castellan was leading him in through the foyer-- not through the carter’s entrance, or even the delivery bay. Shad was walking inside like he belonged there, and the thought was almost too exciting to manage.

The scholar kept his eyes on the back of the castellan’s perfectly coiffed head and thought very deliberately about the swing and step of his feet, lest he get distracted by the castle’s incredible architecture and lose pace with the other man. Shad knew himself; “easily distracted”, his mother had said. If he wasn’t so focused, he’d probably stop to marvel at something beautiful-- and there was plenty of beauty to behold, from the glances he has been able to steal out of the corners of his eyes --and resurface only after the castellan was long gone.

The castellan led him across the grand throne room, and Shad snuck a look upwards just long enough to sigh at the sight of the goddess triad rendered in marble. His footsteps faltered as he stared for only a moment, before he resolutely returned his attentions to the shiny back of the castellan. 

A door installed behind the queen’s throne opened up into a well-lit corridor which snaked upwards and away. Shad followed quietly, making sure not to brush up against anything. The corridor ended on the upper landing of a spiral staircase, where another door marked the entrance to an unknown room. 

Without a word to Shad, the castellan knocked politely on the wood before opening and sticking his head around the edge of the door. "The scholar you sent for is here, your majesty."

There was a muffled affirmative from somewhere within, and then the castellan was staring pointedly at Shad.

Shad decided to try and sidle past the castellan, who hadn’t moved. The scholar gave a quick nod of his head and muttered a pleasantry as they maneuvered around each other, feeling every inch the awkward, gangly idiot.

When he was through and the door was eased back into its massive stone jamb behind him, he almost openly sighed in relief.

Late morning sunlight filtered through a single arched window. Queen Zelda stood in front of it, her hands shuffling through a stack of papers piled on a long, low desk. Without turning, she said: "Hello, Shad.”

"Good afternoon, your majesty," the scholar returned politely. Flecks of dust shone in the air around the monarch's regal head. In a bid to quell his nerves before they could grip him, Shad folded his hands neatly behind his back, and tried to stand a bit straighter. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"Straight to business," Zelda hummed. She settled the papers neatly onto the desk, before turning. "I like that."

Flattery bloomed in his chest.

Queen Zelda was beautiful, in a subdued, quiet sort of way. Her simple tunic and skirts would have almost had her passing off as a castle maid if not for the glittering diadem settled above her brow. And, well-- had Shad not already _known_ what the queen looked like, too, of course.

The scholar cleared his throat, pulling himself from his thoughts.

The queen gave him a small smile.

“Well, Master Shad,” she began, her voice calm and clear. “It seems you've become _the_ preeminent historian for collecting Hyrule's secrets.”

Shad watched as the monarch pulled out a chair tucked beneath the desk and elegantly perched herself upon it.

“Really, my lady?”

“ _Really_ , my lord.”

His ears flamed instantly. “Oh, n-no, my queen,” Shad stuttered. Reflexively, he pushed up his glasses. “I couldn’t possibly be called a--”

“Then don’t call me a ‘lady’. We’re just two people here, Shad.” Another of those small smiles. “Call me Zelda.”

Shad licked his lips. “I... I only picked up where my father left off, your gra-- Um, Zelda.” he amended. “A-And I have a wonderful network of friends, from all walks of life, who aid me in filling in any gaps that I, without fail, find myself stumbling upon.”

“Selling yourself short for the sake of humility does your intelligence a disservice," Zelda chided, her voice mild. "Still. I inquired amongst your peers, and without fail, it was your name that kept popping up. _'Shad Maidson. Persistent'_ , they said. _'Bit of a dreamer, but there's no one else with his eye for collecting detail.'”_ Zelda stopped, and seemed to examine him. Shad felt himself stop breathing.

“It all sounds so very promising,” the queen finally commented.

“…Oh,” Shad unknowingly bit his lower lip, unsure of what to do with the genuine praise. "Thank-- Thank you, your high-- Zelda."

A moment of quiet spread through the room. The queen continued to watch the man, who in turn tried to focus on breathing and not dissolving into a fidgety mess.

Zelda seemed to reach some sort of secret conclusion within herself. She drew her shoulders back a bit straighter, a motion which Shad unconsciously copied.

“Master Shad, of Castle Town. I speak for the entire royal court when I say that I am impressed with your devotion to your research.”

Shad tried not to beam with the rush of sudden, surging pride.

"It is because of your curious mind,” Zelda continued. “And your explorer's willingness to make sense of the unknown that I have decided to gift you with a very important task.”

The scholar shuffled his feet where he stood and blinked a few times behind his glasses; hoping his face didn't betray too much of his confusion.

"Uh…?" Inwardly, Shad kicked himself. ‘ _Poetic, Maidson. Really intellectual.’_ "Ah, um, I mean--- w-what task is that?"

The queen’s slight smile was a patient, indulgent kindness. "The spate of wars and failed coups these past pair of centuries have left our landmark temples and monoliths in unfortunate disrepair," she detailed. "The earth steadily reclaims every mosaic, every statue. There are things in Hyrule that should not be forgotten."

For a quick second, Shad was reminded of his father's mountain of unfinished research, and the scholar's heart was filled with longing. "So much has been lost," he murmured, mostly to himself. "History shouldn't be allowed to disappear." 

Wisely, the young queen nodded. "Exactly. I want you to help preserve our history, Master Shad. Preserve our history for the sake of not just your own intellectual hunger, but for the future generations who would benefit most."

A bewildered sense of overwhelm settled on Shad’s mind like a blanket. "Your majesty,” he breathed, temporarily forgetting about the queen’s order to call her by her given name. “I, I am _so_ flattered-- that you would select me for such an important..." He stopped, consciously refocusing so he wouldn’t have the chance to ramble. “What, exactly, do you have in mind, my la-- Zelda? If I might ask. What would be your preferred way that I accomplish this endeavor?"

"Oh, don't worry about pleasing me," Zelda waved a lazy hand in the air as she stood and turned away, back towards the long table beneath her window. Books thumped as she moved them around, and she raised her voice to be heard: "I'll be pleased when the gaps in the palace library are filled."

The dismissal was just enough room for Shad’s mind to curl inward on itself as his thoughts started to race. "By Nayru," he murmured, half aware that the words had made it to his tongue. "Where should I start?"

There was a moment where Zelda didn't speak, and Shad was too busy with his interior to notice when the queen straightened up again.

"Ah--" The exclamation was a single pleased, musical note. Shad looked up at the same moment that Zelda returned to her desk. "Here." She gestured at him to come closer. "Take this."

It was a book, no bigger than the scholar’s own journal, but thick with almost triple the pages. Shad hefted the thing into his hand and looked questioningly at its face. There was a symbol burned onto its leather front; something intricate and kingly, and studded with gems. The scholar’s eye immediately identified the insignia of Hyrule’s many tribes knitted into the curling design.

“This is an illuminated manuscript,” he heard his mouth say, in the same moment that he found his fingers flipping the book open. The glance of shifting pages showed that the edge of each were painted in a fine line of gold.

Zelda nodded, but Shad’s eyes were fixed onto the inside of the tome. “This book is record of the treasures our kingdom once possessed," the queen explained. "It was made by the first historical advisor of Hyrule; a knowledgeable scholar who'd devoted his life to cataloguing all the holy objects scattered throughout this great land. Unfortunately, he died before they could be properly acquired and tended to, and most of them have been lost to time. As you can see, there’s plenty of room left in the book for new additions."

Shad closed and turned the book over in his hands, wondrous.

"You'd like for me to pick up where this ancient scholar left off-- Is that right?”

"Precisely. Now, more than ever, it's become apparent that to leave our kingdom's sacred treasures lying around where anyone with ill will towards the world of light could find them is... foolish."

Silence stretched between them, and it took a moment for Shad to notice. He raised his head and caught the queen’s eyes. They were intense, and sharp.

Gravely, Zelda stated: "I will not have another shadow incident, Shad. I will not have my people put through something like that again, if I can help it."

There was an edge in her voice so unlike her prior tone that it sent a nervous flutter twitching through Shad’s gut.

Self-consciously, the scholar licked his lips and swallowed, trying not to fidget under the weight of Zelda’s gaze. "A reasonable resolution, y-your majesty," he managed.

It took another moment, but eventually, Zelda's eyes softened into something closer to normal. "There are three stones," she began. "That were once kept by elemental guardians. As far as the annals tell, they were not returned to their original keepers after the Hero of Time used them to open the Sacred Realm and defeat the witch king, Ganondorf."

“You’d have me find these stones,” Shad murmured.

“Yes, I would.”

“Then I shall find them!” Shad announced. Lightness replaced the flutter in his middle.

“…It's dangerous to go alone, Shad," the queen said suddenly, drawing the scholar’s full attention. That calculating expression was back on Zelda’s face, and Shad felt himself go still.

“Have you ever been into the wilds, before?” Zelda asked. The way she said the words suggested that she already knew the answer.

“Well, I've... I, uh...” Shad trailed off, and then sighed. “No, ma'am, I-- I have not. Not truly.”

Zelda nodded. "You'll need a guide, then." The queen settled herself into the chair at the desk, and pulled free a clean sheet of paper. She was tapping a pen into an inkwell as she asked: "Do you know the Ordonian, The Hero of Twilight?"

"...Link?" Before the monarch could confirm, Shad found himself smiling. "Oh, yes, your majesty; I do. We are, ah, well acquainted."

The sound of scratching filled the room as Zelda wrote. "If you can find him,” she said. “Give him this."

She passed Shad the folded letter, still warm with drying wax from the Queen's personal seal at the bottom. Shad unfolded it without thinking and was halfway through the first paragraph before realizing his blunder, but the contents of the letter distracted him.

"You, ah-- You want for Link to... to accompany me?" A shiver of mindless delight ran through him, but Shad quashed the feeling before it could run away with his thoughts. Not here.

"I can't have an official historical advisor go missing in the line of duty, can I?" Zelda asked lightly. "Though the shadow might be lifted, Hyrule is far from peace, and you're not exactly a child of the sword, are you?"

An old, familiar shame dropped into Shad's gut, obliterating the knee-jerk joy that always came from thinking about Link.

For a moment, Shad was suddenly hyperaware of how he looked: soft-handed, unscarred, thin-limbed-- _bespectacled,_ to boot.

A nasty little voice muttered darkly at him from the depths of his esteem.

_'You’re a weakling, Maidson.'_

"My mind is as sharp as any blade, your majesty," Shad declared, voice verging just on this side of pitifully insistent.

Zelda's small mouth was still curved, but her gaze was steady and without nonsense. "If a sharp mind was all it took to keep one safe, every forge from here to the desert would be out of business," the monarch intoned.

Shad decided to keep his mouth shut in the face of such an embarrassing truth.

"Traditionally,” the queen continued. “The Hero of Hyrule has always been a well-traveled and resourceful man, and Link seems no different. I cannot think of anyone other who should know how to help you find the best of what remains of our living history."

Shad swallowed, nodding. “I cannot disagree myself, my lady.”

Zelda’s sudden grin was blinding. “Then go forth and make me proud, _milord_.”

          %

Shad stumbled into the sunlight, blinking hugely as his brain reeled. The weight of the book in his hand at his side seemed to refocus the entirety of his being, and his whole mind stopped on one, glorious vein of thought:

 _The Queen_ had chosen him, herself! The Queen recognized his intellect! And she had chosen him for a mission so surmountably complex and important to the kingdom... She'd entrusted the catalogue of their world-- _to him!_

A strange new energy seemed to fill him with a buoyant warmth as he marched down the steps into town _. 'Validation,'_ Shad reflected, the acknowledgment doing nothing to hamper his good mood. _'So, this must be what it feels like to finally have another know your talent.'_

The flap of a paper sticking out from the middle of the illuminated manuscript caught his attention. Shad pulled it free once he was safely tucked away beneath one of the stone awnings that lined the square.

The buoyant warmth morphed into a strange, tickling shudder as he remembered who the paper-- the _letter_ , was for.

It was for the Ordonian-- for _Link_. The Hero of Twilight. The Hero of Hyrule, who was meant to accompany Shad on this phenomenal journey at behest of the queen, herself.

Yes, Shad had a… a… a _thing_ for the warrior. By Din, how could he not? The man was a literal, living hero, like the ones out of the stories of old-- He was _blessed by the goddesses_ , and held in esteem along with the greatest of rulers. Anyone with eyes should have a thing for Link, too! Thinking the name alone was enough to cause his cheeks to burn. “Butterflies” just wasn’t enough to describe the strength of the warm thing that lived within him and made itself known whenever the other man was near.

Shad felt himself heave a great sigh of pathos. As with all his moments of shiny joy, there suddenly crept a dark halo of wretched reality.

It wasn’t meant to be. It never was, for Shad-- for someone so uncoordinated, so thin and pale; someone so _weak_. Reading about magnificence was as close as the scholar would ever be able to get to experiencing glory, and he knew it. Shad was lucky enough just to be able to sit in awe of the great hero, those few times Link was ever in Castle Town, and passed through Telma’s bar.

_‘…Telma’s bar!’_

Shad pushed off from the wall and stepped seamlessly into the flow of foot traffic, momentarily forgetting about the silly torch he held for the Ordonian. The letter flapped in the breeze where he held it, and Shad set his teeth behind his lips, lifting his chin. He had a mission from the queen, damn it. This was no time to feel sorry for himself.

 _‘If anyone knows where that man is, or where he might be,’_ Shad thought. _‘It’ll probably be Telma.’_

%

The tavern was warm and cozily gloomy, like always. There was only a straggling thread of crowd out at this early hour; old regulars who often wandered in whenever they had the free time.

Shad nodded at the familiar drinkers hunched over the bar, and they returned the motion with predictable ease.

Telma was wringing a rag around the lip of a thick stein when Shad walked up. She shot him a smirk that verged on smug. 

“Thought you weren’t ever coming back here, huh?” She asked, voice plummy with self-satisfaction.

“I forgive you,” Shad announced, setting Zelda’s book down onto the bar top. The gold on the pages caught the warm torchlight in a gleam. Telma eyed the source of the shine, but she was used to Shad toting around esoteric old books that should probably be locked up in a museum, and so the sight of the gold left her unfazed. She never lost her smirk.

“So, what’s going on in the lofty world of scholars, Mister Maidson?” Telma asked.

Shad tapped his fingertips against the knobby front of the book, his nails clicking on the facets of the gemstones. “I was summoned to the castle this morning,” he began, unable to stop the words from growing into an excited rush. “And the queen selected me for the most exciting position-- She wants for me to travel throughout Hyrule and catalogue and collect the intricacies of our physical history. I’m tasked with gathering the treasures of our heritage for the royal archive!”

“Well, good for you, honey!” Telma trilled. “That sounds right up your alley!”

“I know! And she also--” Shad paused, swallowing as he felt the slightest tinge of heat crawl high into his cheeks. He cleared his throat. “--She also wishes for me to be accompanied by the Ordonian, Link. As a guide,” he added quickly. “Because he is so known to be so knowledgeable about mastering the wilderness. It shall only be for safety, you know.”

Telma continued to wipe dry the mug in her grip. “Huh,” she grunted. The publican shot a heavy, knowing look at the scholar, and Shad felt himself instinctively tense.

_‘Oh, boy.’_

But all Telma asked was a kindly: “You want a drink, honey?”

Shad gradually unclenched with a grateful sigh. He collected the book and started off for his usual table in the back. “Yes, please,” he called.

“Link should be here today, too,” Telma called after him. Shad only tripped up for a split second, but didn’t respond.

He busied himself with poring over the filled chapters within the book, so engrossed with the beauty of the manuscript and the information within that he barely registered Telma’s deliberately shouted greeting about an hour later.

“Link! Good to see you, honey!”

The reply, however, cut through Shad’s concentration like a bolt of lightning.

“Hey, Telma.”

Shad looked up across the table. He couldn't stop the flicker of heat in his chest.

Link stood in the middle of the floor near the bar, scratching an absent itch as he traded mannered greetings with the buxom publican. The Ordonian looked just as tan and sinewy as ever, wearing the green getup of the legendary Hero, and looking perfectly at ease.

Shad couldn’t help the small bite he put onto his lower lip.

The hero passed a polite, close-lipped smile to Telma, and then he looked over to the left-- and caught Shad’s eyes. Suddenly his smile was toothy and wide, and he was striding over to the scholar’s alcove in that sure, confident little jog he was wont to do.

Self-consciously, Shad quickly adjusted his glasses and sat up a bit straighter in his chair.

Link stopped at the table and smiled at Shad.

But before the Ordonian could speak, Shad was piping up: “You, uh-- You’re just the man I wanted to see!”

Link blinked, eyebrows raising. “Really?”

“Uh, y-yes. Yes. I have a letter here, for you! From, ah, from the queen.”

“From Zelda, huh?”

Link settled himself into the chair catty-corner to Shad’s own on the right, and took the fold of parchment from the scholar. The warrior unfolded the paper and started reading silently to himself, although he had to follow along the words with a callused fingertip as he did so.

Shad bit back a noise that would have been something like a moan mixed with a squeak at the adorable sight.

“…You’re going to go in service of the throne, too?” Link eventually asked, looking up to catch the scholar’s eyes. Shad felt the sudden need to clarify his position.

“Just as an intellectual endeavor,” he said quickly. “I won’t be needing weaponry, or anything.” He tried to laugh, but Link’s expression was serious.

“I wouldn’t write off the idea just like that, Shad.”

The redhead covered the minute shiver that crawled up his spine at the sound of his name in Link’s mouth with an adjustment of his glasses, and a clearing of his throat.

“Some of the most sacred places I’ve been to have been the worst when it comes to being filled with monsters,” Link continued. “I mean, _filled_ with them. Some of the ugliest and the meanest have been put there deliberately to guard some relic, or whatever. I wouldn’t go back to those places without something more than a knife, you know.”

“Well, you already vanquished them before,” Shad countered. “I doubt they’ve even dared to come back after the shadow was lifted.”

He knew the instant the words left him that he sounded incredibly naïve. Shad didn’t know the inner workings of malevolence; his experience went as far as his bookshelf, and he knew it.

But Link didn’t look exasperated, or frustrated with Shad’s naïveté-- The blond’s expression was patient, maybe even a touch fond.

“It says here that Zelda wants me to accompany you,” he read, before catching Shad’s eyes again. A small smile pulled at his thin lips. “I guess you’re right; you won’t need weaponry. You’ll have me.”

 _‘I’ll have you,’_ Shad’s mind echoed, delirious with reality.

Heavy footsteps announced Telma’s presence. She set down a pint in front of Link, and a frosty green glass of Shad’s favorite cocktail.

“Here’s some drinks for you boys,” she stated. “On the house.”

Link’s smile was handsome and polite. “Thanks, Telma.” The publican murmured a pleasantry and walked away, her large skirts swishing. 

Link pulled a long sip from the beer and then leaned back in his chair, looking over at Shad. “What are you looking to find, first?”

Shad took a moment to savor the first sip of his drink, and didn’t speak immediately. “Ancient elemental stones,” he eventually said, licking his lips. “The queen mentioned them on her own, so I figured that would be a good enough place to start,” Shad declared. “I’ve been reading through this book she gave me, and it clearly defines the last known resting places of the stones, so.” He took another sip of his julep. “It shouldn’t be too hard.”

Link nodded. “When were you thinking about setting out?”

“Uh…” The scholar paused. He scratched his head. “Well, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I’m, well, I was only inducted into this service this morning, old boy.”

The blond leaned back in his chair, and hummed. "Well, it'd be a good idea to start at this time of year," Link said. "Spring is great for travelling, since the next snows are a long ways off. It shouldn't be too hard to get those rocks."

Shad considered the acuity of Link's words, and he felt his heart lurch a little. "Ah, stones," he corrected gently. "They're not just any rocks; they're supposed to be precious jewels, filled with magical power."

"Stones, then," Link amended. He smiled a little at Shad.

Shad sighed inwardly. _‘Oh, butterflies.’_

“We could start tomorrow,” Link suggested, taking a sip of his pint. “I’m ready to go, as is.”

Shad smiled. He felt a tad bit floaty; apparently, mixing alcohol with whatever happened inside of him whenever Link smiled his way created a frightfully powerful mixture. “That would be wonderful,” he said, careful not to let his tongue trip on the syllables. “I’ll pack tonight.”

“Meet you at the stables by the Southern Gate? That’s where I’ve got Epona for the night. You want to get going early, right?”

“Yes, no time to dawdle…”

There was the sound of bells. Shad looked up.

" _Oh--!_ Gracious, just look at the time," Shad suddenly yelped. The triforce-shaped clock hanging in the far corner was chiming the new hour. The scholar had been chattering away far too long. He pushed back from the table and stood, offering Link a sheepish smile. "I must be going."

Heavy steps announced Telma's physical re-addition to her prior eavesdropping. The publican leaned against the wood of the alcove doorway, folding her arms beneath her breasts. Her green eyes were narrowed. "Off to keep a date with that blowhard, huh?" The words were spat loud and held no subtlety.

Shad froze mid-step.

 _'Telma wouldn't...?'_ His mind raced in on itself. _'Not in front of... Would she really--?'_

Link's gaze slowly shifted between the barmaid and Shad. "What blowhard?"

A hot spark of impotent frustration lit itself inside Shad's throat. He swallowed, trying to keep his expression even. They'd been down this road before, and both knew where it led. "Telma," he managed. "Don't."

The pitying, protective kindness in his friend's eyes upset him more than the dangerously personal nature of her implied topic. "Oh, Shad." Telma's sigh was long-suffering. " _Honey_."

That was enough.

With a frown, Shad announced: " _Goodbye_ , Telma. Link, I'll meet you at the stables tomorrow morning, right?"

Wide-eyed spectator, Link blinked at suddenly being addressed. "Uh, yeah." He nodded. "Absolutely." 

With a polite, tight little inclination of his head, Shad pushed up his glasses and hurried out of the bar; his eyes fixed on his shoes.

          %

Tarus was _not_ a blowhard, Shad insisted to himself. Sure, the man had a tendency to loudly recount his brightest days to anyone who'd listen, but who among them _didn't_ fall victim to vanity, at some point? No one, that's who. 

If only Telma could see how _lovely_ Tarus could be, then she'd understand.

The brunet had a love of puzzles that sometimes rivalled even Shad's own, and he could spend hours debating with the scholar-- stubborn and intelligent, if not imperfectly informed. (Many people were guilty of using the redundant phrase "irregardless"! It wasn't just Tarus!) Shad privately insisted that the other man’s passion more than made up for his habit of self-congratulatory pontification.

But, it's not as if Shad were offered a very full cup from which to sip, however. The scholar's caste was oftentimes on par with the priesthood, meaning full of old men (bitterly insular against new blood), and/or full of others who did not share his preferential proclivities (bitterly against coupling of the same sex.)

Tarus had been his beau for six months. Granted, Shad had spent large tracts of that time working on his research, or Tarus was too busy learning to manage his father's trading company to stop and see him, but-- _six months._ That was a full half of a year. You don't spend six months around another human being without learning them quite well. Shad was sure of who he was dating.

Telma could, could...

He huffed to himself. _'Nosy old biddy can go kick rocks for all she knows.'_  

Besides, whatever nonsense flights of fancy he might entertain in the privacy of his own head about the Great Hero were just that: nonsense. He’d never be with the Ordonian; it was high time he accepted it. Life with Tarus was his reality-- There’d wasn’t ever going to be one with Link.

Shad wove through pedestrians as he crossed Castle Town Central Square, craning his neck to spy the floral umbrellas of the café. It was nearing noon, and the lunch crowd was growing thick. But standing in the lee of the establishment, just as they’d agreed upon, was a familiar face. Tarus was chatting amicably with a couple of the café’s patrons, Shad noticed; oh, ever the charmer.

He couldn’t help his smile. The mere sight of the man was enough to turn an excited warmth in the scholar’s belly.

Shad climbed the platform that held the café and settled in close to Tarus’s side, smiling brightly. He didn’t notice the pause in conversation from the strangers standing semicircle to Tarus’s front.

“Hello, Tarus; Tarus’s friends. What are we talking about?” Shad asked, trying his best to sound amicable and mannerly. He held the queen’s book in one hand, and extended a proprietary touch to Tarus’s nearest shoulder with the other.

Tarus turned, catching Shad’s eyes. The taller man seemed to freeze for a moment, before he pasted a new smile onto his face.

"…Oh, Shad. Hello.” He nodded tightly at the scholar before he turned back to his acquaintances. “Excuse me, everyone.” One cool hand settled low against Shad’s back. “Shad, be a dear and come with me, please,” Tarus commanded.

Tarus led him out of sight of the patio and café, and turned them into the shaded gloom of the open passage leading towards a viewing platform in the castle wall. Tarus brought them to a stop in one of the corners of the passage’s foyer, and leaned against the brickwork.

Shad was standing inside the archway that led to the staircase, and could see a pair of gorons across the room, busying themselves with moving crates. The smaller one waved at Shad when he noticed his presence, and the scholar waved back politely before he turned his full attention onto Tarus.

"What's this about, darling?" Shad asked, curiously.

"I enjoy you very much," Tarus stated, apropos of nothing.

The scholar couldn't help his soft smile. "I'm glad.”

A flicker momentarily bent Tarus’s full lips, before the expression faded just as quickly. "Shad,” he began, clearing his throat. “My family expects much from me. _I_ expect much from me."

"Well, of course," Shad agreed, matter-of-fact. "You are a clever man in the prime of his youth." Affectionately, he raised a hand to settle gently against one of Tarus's chiseled cheeks.

With a pinched little smile, Tarus pulled Shad's hand down from his face and held it between the both of his own.

"If I want to surpass my father's success anytime soon," the nobleman continued, "you must understand: I can't keep wasting my time on a dead-ended path leading nowhere."

_'...What?'_

The scholar blinked. "What?"

Tarus sighed, a quick rush of air, and he looked at the redhead as if he were being exceptionally patient with a child. "Look, Shad-- You're sweet, but you honestly didn't think this was something permanent, did you?"

Unconsciously, the scholar drew his hand out of the other man's grip.

_'No.'_

“I'm...”

“Oh, Shad,” Tarus sighed. “I guess it’s time to rip off the bandage. This--" He gestured to the space between them. "--Isn't going to last. In fact," Tarus made an incredulous snort. "I'm surprised I let this continue for as long as it has."

There was a ringing sound in Shad’s head that seemed to grow louder the longer Tarus talked.

 _'Oh no,’_ He felt his mind start to scramble. _‘Oh please, Nayru, no.'_

“I'm just a..." Shad repeated, slowly coming to terms with the fact that, yes, he had heard the other man correctly. His hands tightened where they gripped Zelda’s book, close to white-knuckling at the leather. "I’m just a dead-ended path leading nowhere… to you."

“You didn’t think this was more than what it was, did you, darling?” Tarus asked, daring to sound incredulous.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” Shad countered, proud that his voice didn’t crack.

Tarus snorted. “…Well, you don't exactly expect me to marry just a castle butler's son, do you?"

"My father was a good and honorable man," Shad immediately snapped, though there lacked fire to his words.

"I'm sure," Tarus breezed, flicking a hand with the statement as if he were swatting away a fly. The same hand came up and repositioned his square lenses. "But, be reasonable. I need to be serious with my life, from now on. I can't waste time playing games. Besides, it’s not like you could give me an heir, either-- unless you’ve got some _extra_ part of you tucked away somewhere I haven’t seen," Tarus chuckled.

"I-I wasn't playing games,” Shad insisted, blinking quickly. "And I, I wasn't aware that I was only a... a waste of time. You _weren’t_ a game for me, Tarus."

As if only now recognizing the other man's distress, Tarus stepped closer to Shad and put his hands on the scholar's hips. "Hey, now," he started, voice pitched warm and bright: "We sure had fun though, yeah?"

Shad's brain was still trying to swim in the knowledge of Tarus's rejection to notice the thumbs that started to rub proprietary little circles against his midriff, up underneath the bottom of his dress shirt.

“I had a great, _great_ time," Tarus emphasized. "And, hey, just think-- You will always have _that_ going for you, Shad."

It was when that faux-brightness dipped into a honeyed croon, and hot breath puffed at the soft skin just below his ear that Shad seemed to finally snap back into himself.

Tarus pushed a couple of fingertips down past the hem of his trousers and husked: "You are _so much fun_."

The scholar jerked away as if burned.

"Don't--" Shad had a hand up, pointing a shaking, accusing finger before he even realized what he was doing.

Not trusting his voice not to break, Shad turned and left.

          %

Castle Town was a city as bustling as it was crowded. This was perfect for someone having, or about to have, an emotional disintegration in public, because most of the city’s denizens were too busy with their own business to notice, or even to care.

Shad pushed through pedestrians, deaf to shouts of aggression for his rudeness. He somehow made it back to East Road on blind autopilot alone, and pushed through the door that led into his apartment. His hands shook as he slung the lock back into place, and when the hollow _thunk_ of the bolt clapped through the room, Shad found himself sagging against the door. He turned until his back was pressed to the wood, and slid down to his bottom with a small whimper.

Part of him wanted to cry outright, but a larger part of him simply felt the overwhelming heaviness of desensitized prescience. A sick sort of vindication fluttered to life in his gut and then died just as quickly.

_‘What was I thinking?’_

He knew this would happen. It always does.

A hot tear snuck its way down his cheek, and when he felt it, Shad heaved a massive, rattling sigh. He swiped it away in a furious jerk, and slammed the same fist down onto his knee.

 _‘Serves you right, Maidson,’_ Shad’s mind bitterly taunted. 

Shad sniffled, and looked down at the book still in his grip. The gold leaf along the edging reflected in a cheerful gleam, and the gemstones on the front seemed to shine in the gaslight of his foyer.

“Well,” Shad wobbled, sniffling again. “At least I have you, dear book.”

 _‘And you have Link,’_ that stupid little voice in his head reminded, bringing with it the warm memory of Link conveying the exact sentiment.

“Hush, you,” Shad muttered darkly, finally climbing to his feet. He swiped his cheeks dry and then held the illuminated manuscript close to his chest. He sighed.

Thoughts of Link reminded him of their agreement to meet tomorrow-- a meeting intended to mark the start of their adventure. _‘That’s right.’_ A weak, excited little flutter suddenly sparked through his chest, and managed to somewhat push away the thick slab of sadness gumming up his heart.

He had packing to do.

          %

The sun had barely risen when Shad made it to the stables the next morning. The municipal torches still burned along the side of the road, and their illumination made it feel like it was still nighttime. Judging by the hour, it probably could still be considered so.

The stables were windowless, and thus stank of old wood and horse business. Shad easily found Epona in a corner stall, saddled and freshly shod, but her rider was nowhere to be seen.

Shad pet at the mare’s forelock with gentle fingers. “Well, I guess I’m just early, aren’t I, girl?” The horse regarded him with patient brown eyes. “Can’t get anything right, can I?” he murmured.

Epona gently brushed off his hand and stretched her neck out over the half-door that closed her stall, sniffing hugely at the fold of linen in Shad’s other hand. Shad pulled it away from her with a huffed laugh.

He pushed up his glasses and smiled at the animal. “You want some of this? But it’s to be my breakfast,” Shad admonished, though without an ounce of reproach. Epona’s muzzle tightened and twitched at him, openly trying to reach the food.

The scholar unwound the linen bundle and exposed the meal he’d purchased from a street vendor before he made the trek across the city. A flatbread foldup of egg, bacon, and hash, and two sausages of unknown origin. Shad peeled off half of the flatbread and held it out for the horse.

“Let’s not tell your daddy, then,” he said conspiratorially, flattening his hand with the bread in the middle of his open palm. Epona used her lips to pull the bread and consumed it in one huge chomp. Shad’s eyes widened, and he laughed. “My goodness, you inhaled that!”

“Yeah, she loves that stuff.”

Shad jumped and looked over. Link was standing not too far away, holding Epona’s bridle and reins. The hero smiled at Shad, and Shad’s middle gave a clench.

“Oh. Good morning, old boy.”

“Mornin’, Shad,” Link returned. Over one shoulder was slung a pair of saddlebags, and Link shifted them down to hang over Epona’s gate. The hero came closer and put a gloved hand against Epona’s muzzle, watching the other man watch him. “Are you good to go?” Link asked.

Shad gestured to the duffle hanging in the crook of his arm. On his back was also a knapsack. “Yes, I am well packed,” he assured. “Although, I don’t know which horse to borrow--”

“Borrow mine,” a loud voice rang out.

Telma was walking over, expertly maneuvering around downed buckets and pitchforks in her high-heeled boots.

“Good morning, Telma,” Shad politely offered. Inwardly, he was shocked he was even able to form words. Embarrassment burned within the scholar. After how he’d behaved to Telma yesterday, he was surprised the woman wanted to talk to him at all.

But Telma only settled a heavily be-ringed hand onto Shad’s nearest shoulder and squeezed it in a maternal sort of way. With that one gesture, Shad immediately knew that his gaffe was totally forgiven. He felt himself relax, and Telma-- ever so emotionally intelligent --smiled at him.

“Hey, honey,” she greeted. “You all ready for this big adventure?”

Shad couldn’t stop the smile that stretched his mouth. “I’m quite excited,” he said, feeling a surge of the sensation spread through him. He bounced on the balls of his feet as his smile brightened into a grin.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Link piped up.

The tips of Shad’s ears went cherry red, and he ducked his head before his cheeks could do the same.

Telma laughed. “Well, I _know_ you two are gonna have some _real fun_ ,” she insisted, the slightest tinge of suggestion in her deep voice making Shad’s grin melt away.

But the publican didn’t continue with her brick-like subtlety. She walked across the pathway and came to a stop in front of a stocky looking bay penned up diagonally from Epona’s stall. Telma good-naturedly patted the horse’s cheek. “Here, Shad,” she said. “You should ride Shero. This old fart, he could use the exercise.”

“Oh, Telma, I couldn’t possibly leave you without a mount,” Shad insisted. “I’ll just rent one of the castle guard’s horses.”

Telma rolled her eyes and made a snort. “Those leggy things won’t get you past Castle Town's gates, let alone carry you over a mountain,” she kindly scorned. “They're showy high-steppers meant to be looked at, not ridden, Shad. I doubt the most they've ever done is trot down High Street.”

Shad bit his lip. “Well, I mean, if you are sure…”

“I am sure. Here, come lead him out and I’ll put him in the cross-ties. Mister Great Hero,” she called over to Link. “You know how to replace horseshoe nails?”

The Ordonian pulled away from Epona and clapped his gloves clean. “Yes, ma’am.”

It took them about half an hour to get Shero in the proper tack, and for Link to rehammer the missing nails on Shero’s hooves. They left Castle Town by the southern gate, just a short while after dawn.

Epona plodded patiently beside Telma's gelded carthorse as Shad shifted in his saddle, trying to find a comfortable position.

Admittedly, it did feel a lot nicer to ride the horse of someone he knew, Shad pondered. Goddess forbid the animal were to founder or throw a shoe, but if such a thing did happen, Shad felt safer having it happen to the horse of a friend, and not the horse of a stranger to whom he wouldn't be able to explain himself.

The rough cut stone of Hot Water Passage was austere and beautiful, and Shad couldn’t help watching the changing striations of rock as they walked.

“Have you ever ridden before?” Link asked him.

Shad blinked back to attention. “Well… Yes, and no.”

“How it that possible?”

“Yes, because I have been sat upon an equine animal with intention to ride on its back. No, because it was just a wizened old pony being led by a clown in a ring at a fair, so I had absolutely no control over the animal. Also, I was seven.”

Link barked a laugh. “That clears it up.” He looked over at the scholar. “Don’t sit so straight, not all the way up and down like that,” he said. “Roll your hips wider, so you’re sitting on your tailbone, but keep your upper back straight.”

“This is like everything they tell you not to do when learning about posture,” Shad commented, obeying the Ordonian’s instructions. After a few moments, Shad must have done something right, because he was no longer bouncing on and bruising his unmentionables. This was Telma’s saddle, so it was large and plush enough to accommodate the shapely woman’s wide bottom, but Shad was a total virgin to horsemanship. Even the most ergonomic of saddles would have been wasted on someone with as little training as him.

“Don’t try to copy me, either,” Link spoke up again.

“What?”

“With your reins. You’re new at this; you shouldn’t be riding one-handed. Don’t be ashamed to use both your hands. And grab onto that saddle horn if you need to, too. I don’t want you falling off.”

Shad ducked his head sheepishly, and adjusted his grip over the reins until one rein was in each of his palms. Of _course_ Link would notice a novice’s attempts to drive a horse like an old dab hand; he must have been sticking out like a sore thumb. Shad just didn’t have the experience. Outside of reading and writing, Shad didn’t have all that much experience in… well, anything.

 _"I had a great, **great** time,”_ Tarus’s voice suddenly crooned in his head.

Shad felt himself still, his heart dropping into his gut.

_“And, hey, just think-- You will always have **that** going for you, Shad.”_

“So, what’s first on the list, Mister Official Historical Archiver?”

Link’s voice cut through the dark cloud of depression that had so instantaneously descended on Shad, and it took the scholar a moment to gather himself.

“Uh, well…” He reached back and over into one of Shero’s saddle bags and withdrew the leather manuscript. He was still holding the reins, though, and paused as he tried to juggle both book and reins in one motion.

“Just loop the reins over the saddle horn to free your hands,” Link ordered. “Shero’s not goin’ anywhere. He’s following Epona and me.”

“Epona and _I_ ,” Shad immediately corrected, without thinking. He blushed and shot a quick look at Link, who only looked amused. Shad wrapped the reins around the saddle horn and flipped open the book, quickly trying to reclaim a little dignity. “Uh, um-- Well, the, uh, the book starts off by detailing the existence of a magical emerald, known as the Kokiri Emerald. It is said to be hidden in the depths of a place called the Forest Temple, in what was once known as the Kokiri Forest. Judging by the rough map of ancient Hyrule included within this passage, I believe the temple to be located in Faron Province.”

“I believe you might be right,” Link hummed. “I had to go through a temple that’s in a forest a couple of times. It might be the same place.”

Shad shut the book with a clap. “We shall see!”

They passed through the end of the stone ingress and continued onto a pebbled road that stretched out and down before them, where Hyrule Field rolled out as a wide, lush valley.

“It was huge and full of monkeys,” Link added. “I know I barely scratched the surface of that place; a lot of it was overgrown and hard to get through--”

A warbling screech interrupted them. In the distance, Shad saw a pair of what looked like wide, dark kites circling over the road.

Link curled his lip, frowning. "Kargaroks," he muttered, disgusted.

"What?" Shad asked. "Kar-rocks?"

"Kargarok," the blond corrected. His blue eyes were sharp and unblinking, watching the creatures bank lazy loops across the path they needed to take. "Think guay, only bigger and meaner."

"Are they birds?"

"They're bullies. Annoying, bird-lizard bullies." Link reached for the boomerang hanging at his hip and rolled it once in his hand, freeing it from its holster strap. "I was hoping we'd make it a little further outside town before any of them came out, but I guess they've already started migrating down from the mountains." He gripped the boomerang and made a face. "Every time I've come across one while on horseback, they've dive-bombed my head and stolen any food they could find in my saddlebags."

Shad blinked and readjusted the clench of his hands around Shero's reins, trying to tamp down on his growing nerves. "What, what should I do?"

"You're good," Link said, urging Epona forward with a light tap of his heels. "I'm gon'a buzz 'em a few times with this--" He held the boomerang aloft for a second. "--And it should disorient 'em long enough for us to make it through their nesting ground without getting harassed."

There was a slight hum coming from the boomerang. Shad eyed it warily. "Where did you get that thing?"

“It’s the Gale Boomerang,” Link stated, as if the words should have meant something to Shad. “Remember that forest temple I said I’ve been in, before? I stole it from a possessed monkey.”

“A… possessed monkey.”

“Yeah, he was possessed by one of those twilight bugs. It was latched onto his head, controlling what he did. There’s a fairy living within the boomerang.”

All the scholar could utter was: “Goodness.”

Link shrugged, rolling the boomerang in his hand. “Anyways,” he said. “It’s a great tool for stunning monsters.”

Link urged Epona forward into a quick trot, catching the attention of the kargaroks when he was about a hundred or so feet ahead. The “battle” probably shouldn’t have been called as such, because it was over before Shad could judge that it had even begun. Link buzzed the beasts with whirlwinds whipped up from the magic boomerang, stunning them as he’d intended, and then he hit them with the thing hard enough to knock them quite a ways away. The kargaroks got the message after a couple of these patterns, and with a reptilian warble, flew away from the road towards the nearby ridge.

"If any more come along, I'll just shoot them down,” Link said, once he was back beside Shad. “We're nowhere near anywhere that could trade for kargarok pelts, right now.”

“They have pelts?”

“Well, they have something. You can skin them and get a kind of sturdy leather from their wings.” The Ordonian knickered to his horse, and Epona started to walk again. Shero began to follow without any say-so from Shad, but the scholar didn’t mind. It seemed that the old gelding knew what to do enough for the both of them.

          %

The sun started to set just as they were crossing a bridge that ran over a little stream; the halfway mark of Hyrule Field, Link had called it.

“We should make camp here, on the higher ground,” Link suggested. “There’s water, and it’s open enough that we can see if something tries to come up on us at night.”

“O-oh,” Shad said. He clenched the reins as the words settled into his brain. This was the wilderness, after all; the lawless lands of bandits and bulblins. He was no more a stranger in a strange land out here than any other creature trying to pass through. “I didn’t take that into account,” he admitted.

Link stopped Epona on a wide patch of grass and dismounted. “Didn’t take what into account?”

Shad copied the hero, and led Shero up to the same tree that Link was tying Epona to. “About the… possibility that we might be attacked. At night. Out here,” Shad added. “…I guess I’m not as prepared as I thought I was.”

“Don’t worry,” Link assured. He finished the knot of Epona’s reins and stepped over to Shero, gently taking the gelding’s reins from Shad and starting another knot around the tree. “Not to brag about myself, but I’ve got super great night vision,” Link said. “Even if the moon’s not out, I can still see like it’s midday.”

“Well,” Shad said, for want of anything better to say. “I shall count on you, then.”

“There you go,” Link smiled. “Now you’re getting it.”

Shad couldn’t find anything to say in return in face of that lovely smile, and so he only nodded and stood very, very still.

Link must not have cared about Shad’s awkwardness, because he only patted Epona one more time before pulling down his saddlebags, and walking out into their chosen camping spot.

“I’ll make a fire,” he volunteered, dropping his saddlebags to the ground.

Shad pulled down his own bags and dropped them nearby to Link’s own. “Shall I gather firewood?”

“No, I’ve got it, Shad.”

Shad sat in the grass, for lack of anything better to do, and hugged his knees as he waited.

The fire was roaring in under an hour, and its heat was a welcome addition once the sun had fully set.

Link pulled off his gauntlets and rubbed his hands together. “Alright, now-- unpack your bundle, there.”

Shad blinked. “Huh?”

The hero’s face was patient. “I want to see what kind of supplies you brought.”

Shad eyed his luggage, hesitant. “Oh, okay…”

On the grass between them, the scholar laid out everything he’d packed. He’d brought pens and replacement ink, and he’d brought books, which included the manuscript (of course), as well as his personal journal, and his father’s research of the sky beings. There were changes of clothing, bound together in precise little rolls. His wallet. His personal grooming kit was nestled in a small zippered pouch. Several bottles contained fresh water. Shad had also brought a sleeping bag and a pillow, newly purchased at the Malo Mart just yesterday.

Link looked over the array of objects with an analytical gleam in his eye. “Books, books. Of course you’d have brought books,” he chuckled. “But… Huh. You really don’t have a single weapon, do you?”

“Is that, is that bad?”

“No. I guess I’m just used to walking around with at least three different kinds of sharp objects. Y’know, it’s kind of refreshing to find someone not kitted up to the gills, for once.”

“Well, thank you.”

“This isn’t enough, though, Shad. I’m sorry, but it’s not. You’re missing some important survival things. You need a lantern, for starters. I’m actually surprised you don’t have one.”

“Like I said,” Shad reminded, unable to keep the note of defeat from his voice. “I guess I’m just not as prepared as I thought I was.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. There’s traders and barterers up and down Faron and Ordon,” the hero stated. “We’ll get what you need, no problem.”

Link held open the duffle as Shad repacked his things. When they were through, the Ordonian moved back to his claimed spot beside the fire, and unrolled a thin pallet mat across the grass. Link didn’t change or remove his shoes; he merely stretched out on the mat and settled onto his back, hands crossed behind his head. He did, however, remove his hat, plopping it on the ground beside him.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he said.

Shad, again, copied the hero, except he knew he’d only be able to find sleep if he slept on his side. “Right.”

Link yawned hugely and shut his eyes. “G’night, Shad,” he muttered.

Shad was too busy watching the firelight flicker over the hero’s sharp features to reply any louder than a whisper. When he felt like he’d been staring for too long, Shad took off and folded up his glasses, and closed his eyes, mind buzzing.

The sight of Link in repose seemed burned behind his eyelids.

          %

“Alright, we’re in Faron, now,” Link announced around nightfall of the second day. “We’re way outside of kargarok country, and bulblin highwaymen tend not to stray too far from the road, and Faron is definitely off the beaten path.”

“Excellent,” Shad breathed, relaxing into his saddle.

“Doesn’t meant there’s not monsters down here,” Link called over his shoulder. He had taken to walking Epona in front of Shad and Shero. “Just different kinds.”

“Of course.”

“But, really, it is a lot safer.”

Shad took in the sight of a brilliantly blue bird with a puff of feathers on its head swoop through the treetop canopy above, and sighed. Just about everything was green. “It’s so vibrant with life, here,” Shad observed.

“Wait ‘til we get to my neck of the woods,” Link said. “You wanna talk about verdant, Ordon is _lush_.”

Shad found himself laughing. “I didn’t know you knew the word ‘verdant’, Mister Hero,” he teased.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Mister Historian,” Link shot back, looking over his shoulder for just a moment to grin at the other man.

Shad didn’t reply but he did keep smiling, feeling heat rush to his cheeks.

The covered trail gradually widened, and exited into an equally covered clearing. There was a shack to the left, with a campfire and a man sitting near it.

Link dismounted and walked Epona by the rein up to the stranger stoking the fire. Shad copied Link and led Shero by the rein, as well. 

“Hi, Coro,” Link greeted.

The new man was gangly and half-dressed, and smiled brightly at them both. Birds flew in and out of the nest at the top of his puffy hair. Shad tried not to stare.

“Hey, guy! How’s the oil level in your lantern?”

Link nodded. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Actually, I’d like to buy a lantern for my friend, here, please.”

Coro pawed into a sack next to him, making jangling sounds as he did so. “Sure thing!” He produced a small, basic lantern, and passed it to the Ordonian. Link gave him a fistful of rupees in return.

Link turned around and held the lantern out for Shad. “Here,” he smiled.

Shad politely received the lantern. “You didn’t have to buy it,” he tried to admonish.

But the hero only flapped a hand at Shad, dismissive. “I’ve got more rupees than I know what to do with, Shad,” he assured. 

The little man, Coro, was watching them pleasantly. “You boys taking a trip?”

“Just passing through, Coro,” Link said.

“That’s nice, guy. But just remember that the world’s a mess, you know. You should really watch your back out there.”

“Will do.” For a moment, the hero looked around, and eyed the canopy above. “Say, Coro-- can we camp here tonight?”

“Why, sure you can! Just watch out for bugs. I had some crazy white bugs in my shack once; they crackled with lightning, scared the dickens out of me. Hey, what are you two doing for supper? Want to split my soup?”

Link looked over at the scholar, his eyes questioning.

Shad shifted his feet. “Soup does sound better than another night of red potion and goat’s milk,” he tried delicately, not wanting to offend the hero.

But Link only stepped close and said, lowly: “You do _not_ want to try Coro’s soup, Shad.” In a louder voice, he said to Coro: “We’ll be fine.”

They set up camp on the other side of the clearing. The oil peddler retired not long after. Shad and Link unrolled their bedlinens on a patch of non-rocky ground, and started a fire. They chatted quietly as moonlight spread over the clearing.

Link polished off the last of his goat’s milk with a lick of his lips. He recorked the bottle and stowed it away again. “…Hey, Shad?”

Shad repositioned his glasses on his nose. Link had graciously allowed him to take the last of the red potion as his dinner, and Shad had been trying to pace himself as he sipped at the thick draught. The scholar took a moment to swallow, and then he answered: “Yes?”

Shad’s eyebrows furrowed. Something was strange about the hero’s face. The Ordonian almost looked guilty. Link stood from his mat, and glanced over at the shack, almost as if he was making sure there wasn’t anyone watching him. “There’s something I need to show you,” he said.

Before Shad could respond, Link hunched himself forward and _shape-shifted_.

“Oh, my goddess," Shad squawked, scrambling backwards.

What stood in place of the Ordonian was a large black wolf. The beast regarded him with the same eyes as Link. Shad paused, staring at the dark blue irises, his brain contorting itself with attempts to understand.

The scholar slowly crawled closer. “ _You're_...? Wait. I've seen this beast before!” He declared. “Many times! I'd always thought it was a wild wolf, driven down from the mountains by the encroaching bulblin encampments. Never in my wildest--" He was cut off as the wolf, as _Link_ , padded closer to him, and put its snout in one of the scholar’s hands. "I'd have never known it was you."

Shakily, Shad used his other hand to pet over the wolf’s crown like he would do to a dog. The wolf licked his thumb.

"...You're amazing," Shad breathed. "Just amazing, old boy."

"It's not a natural thing," Link explained, once he’d shifted back. The transfiguration happened in a cloud of shadow light, and must have been inherently magical, because Link turned back into a human just as dressed and covered as he was beforehand.

Shad blinked out of his thoughts that, while he was a wolf, Link had been, technically, naked.

“It’s not?”

"I wasn't born like this,” Link confirmed. “Being in twilight turned me into a wolf. But, even after I'd been in and out of twilight a few times, I couldn't shift at will. After I'd been to the lakebed temple and killed that eel, Zant used some sort of extra potent magic to force me into the wolf body, even though I'd broken the twilight. The master sword fixed me up, though. It's magic presence can break curses."

"But... You still turn into a wolf," Shad protested.

"The magic on me was something different than Twili magic, so the curse didn't disappear-- It turned into a crystal. I used to wear it on a cord around my neck, but one day it just... I absorbed it." Link shrugged. "Now I can shift whenever I want."

Shad stared. "You... absorbed it."

"Yeah."

"Just... absorbed it.”

"Uh-huh."

_"Just like that?"_

"Yep." A slow grin pulled itself across the hero’s mouth. "Just like that."

The scholar stared ahead without really seeing. _'He absorbed the shadow king's magic... and yet, he doesn't have an ounce of fear.'_

Link settled himself back onto his mat, and started digging into the pouches at his belt. Part of The Ancient Hero's uniform were a series of magical pouches that Link explained could hold almost anything he could fit through their mouths, without any added weight. Shad was fascinated. His whole arm disappeared down into one of the pouches, and withdrew with a fistful of something dark blue.

“Here,” Link held the unknown something out for Shad to take. “It’s edible, I promise.”

“But… what is it?”

“Deku baba jerky. Go on, try it!”

Shad hesitated for only a moment, before he realized that to decline would be incredibly rude. He took a small bite, and chewed it thoughtfully. Shad smiled. “…It’s not bad!”

Link returned the expression. "I've tried almost everything," he said. "Back home, if it wanders into the yard, it might as well have wandered into the kitchen."

"Goodness."

Link shrugged. "Meat is meat. Some of the things I kill, y'know, not even I would eat as a wolf-- There's no point in trying to cook things like chuchu, bari, or bubble skulls. Guays don't have enough on them to wind up as anything more than jerky, and things like toadpoli are way too fatty. Don't even get me started on dodongo. I think I lost a tooth the first time I tried to eat one."

Shad finished the jerky and wiped his hand clean. "You truly have an adventurer's heart, old boy," he commented.

The hero snorted. "More like I got stuck inside a temple, lost my map, ran out of supplies, and had to talk myself out of eating my boots."

"But surely there've been people to help you on your quest, though, right? Like tonight; that Coro fellow seemed eager to feed us. Most folks are good and kind, I've noticed. With everything you've done, I doubt there would truly be a dearth of debtors just lining up to share a meal."

When there didn’t come a reply, Shad looked up. "...Link?"

"You'd think, yeah?" The smile the blond offered didn't reach his eyes, and didn't live for very long.

The Hero busied himself with stoking the campfire. "Tonight was a random instance, Shad,” he said. “There aren’t many Coros in the wild. But, I'm used to roughing it," Link told. Shad could hear a flatness in his voice, and it made the scholar pay closer attention. "Ordon might be a farming province, but the outskirts are still the outskirts. Sometimes the harvest fails, sometimes the traps break. Sometimes, the hens just won't lay. The goats might catch and spread a sickness through the herd faster than we can treat it and next thing you know, the kids are starving because the nannies can't produce milk, which means no dairy. No cheese. No butter. If the kids starve, there goes next spring's cullable livestock. You can't live on just fish and frogs; there's not enough nutrients in 'em. We've had villagers try, and that's why there are so many gravestones in Ordona's spring."

Link poked his stoking stick into the heart of the campfire with a precise, mutedly angry kind of jab. "Most of the places I've had to go have been really remote, and a lot of times, I've been the only human to visit for centuries. Dirty old temples in the middle of nowhere aren't exactly bursting with hospitality." He stabbed his stick once more and then it let go, still not looking at Shad. "You shouldn't worry. I've been hungry before. I know how to handle it."

 _'Nayru's love, I had no idea. Why didn't Rusl mention anything?'_ Shad thought, quietly working over the other man's words as they echoed inside his head, trying to understand. _'Maybe the elder Ordonian is just as much a product of his upbringing as Link. Maybe these things are just the norm, where they come from.'_

Shad was quiet for a long minute.

"I might've come up the son of a butler,” he began. “But... I've never been hungry. Even during my treks for research, I never strayed too far off the beaten path that wasn't far from a little hamlet, or a proper village." Shad adjusted the perch of his glasses. "I doubt about the ubiquity of food vendors available on the side of Death Mountain."

Another snort. "Yeah."

Shad couldn't help watching the blond's profile as Link frowned at the fire.

"Does anyone really understand what you go through? What you've gone through? Rusl not once voiced a concern for the state of your care whenever you were off doing goddess-knows-what whenever the rest of us gathered. Neither did Auru, or Ashei-- But, I believe the latter warrior's own survivalist predisposition is to blame for such distance."

Shad twisted his fingers together as he tried to find the right words. "You've done incredible things for this kingdom, Link, and I-- I never imagined..." He paused, and then he sighed. "I'm sorry. We've burdened you."

"Shad, it's okay. I agreed to do it."

The redhead blew out a defeated breath, billowing his cheeks. "No, no-- It isn't. I feel like we, as a kingdom, have failed you."

"You don't speak for the kingdom."

"I might as well! My membership of the Hyrule Resistance probably affords me more room than most to try and speak for the kingdom."

The Ordonian looked almost regretful for having said anything.

Shad inched closer. "Link,” he said, very seriously. "I am so, so sorry for how people have treated the Hero. The man who saved our world should never have starved for even an hour during the process."

Link looked up, caught the scholar’s eyes. Shad froze.

But Link’s gaze was soft. "You're really nice, Shad."

Despite himself, the scholar blushed. "I, i-it's just common decency, you know. You did us a great service."

"...Y'know, the light spirit Lanayru actually apologized to me for the same thing about halfway through my twilight quest," Link said.

"Oh, 'the light spirit'." The words hopped out of Shad's mouth practically of their own accord, palpable with mock-affront. "A light spirit of _Nayru_ spoke up for the kingdom and apologized to you. Well, pardon _me_ , then, just completely forget my sad little attempt to compete." Shad's face suddenly bled of all color, and his eyes went impossibly wide. "I-- I mean--"

But Link was _laughing_ , big, loud guffaws that crinkled his eyes and shook his shoulders.

Shad blushed impossibly darker, a freezing dread spreading through his chest. "I am, I am _so,_ so sorry _,_ old boy; Link, I was not thinking--"

"Shad, Shad--" Link gasped. "That was _so funny_. Your voice, your face--"

"Oh, _gods_ , I'm mortified."

"Don't be! It was great!" Link clapped a hand on the scholar’s shoulder. "I really, really didn't know you had it in you."

"It is something mother has tried for decades to quash within me. Unfortunately, my father thought my... _sass_ , was beyond amusing, and encouraged me behind her back many times to speak without thinking."

"Your old man sounds like he was a trip," Link laughed.

"He was that, he was that."

          %

Shad woke to the sound of birdsong, and of Coro paddling around with his campfire.

The weird little man waved to Shad, once he was up, but thankfully didn’t try to start any conversation.

Shad slipped on his shoes and quietly maneuvered his sleeping bag back into a roll, watching Link for any signs of the hero waking. The Ordonian only continued to snore from his place diagonally across from the scholar.

Shad stretched and groaned and, checking that his noise hadn’t woken his companion, started wandering around the clearing. It really was beautiful, the perfect example of nature in its, well, natural state. Even Coro’s shack looked like it belonged there.

The horses were lazily munching on the underbrush nearby to the forest path and paid Shad absolutely no mind. There was a rock wall across from them, and Shad wandered over to it. The wall rambled in a curve, and opened into a stone clearing. Ancient trees seemed to be in a slow battle against the immovable solidity of the mountain; roots crawled over rock, and branches hung in snake-like swoops over the stony glade.

Shad continued his slow constitutional, admiring the strange indents and formations of the rock. It looked like someone had come along and had tried to shape this area into something esoterically deliberate, something Delphic, almost--

He rounded a corner, and his heart skipped a beat.

There was an owl statue set into the face of the wall.

Without thinking, Shad turned quickly on his heel and ran for his luggage. He quieted his excitement once he was back at their campsite, mindful of Link’s sleep, but wasn’t there long enough to make much of a difference. He grabbed a pen and his father’s notebook, and scurried back to the smaller clearing, heart hammering with the rush of discovery.

Shad was so busy sketching and cataloguing the location of the owl statue that he almost jumped clear out of his skin when a hand alighted on his back.

“Goddess, didn’t mean to scare you,” Link smiled, stepping back to give Shad room to face him.

“I’m sorry, I was just-- I was so absorbed in my findings. I hope I didn’t wake you earlier.”

“Nah, you didn’t.” Link looked up at the statue, his expression thoughtful. “I was going to show this to you,” he said, to Shad’s instant surprise. The Ordonian put a hand on the back of his head and adjusted the seat of his hat, chuckling to himself. “I didn’t plan on you being an earlier riser than me,” Link admitted.

Shad felt a little like a child who’d been caught sneaking peeks at a holiday gift. “Sorry,” he repeated, aware of the crawl of flattery in his chest because Link had possessed intentions to please him. He waved the hand holding his father’s notebook towards the owl statue. “It’s just-- This is the fourth statue I’ve found, and I was cataloguing it for posterity.”

Link put his hands on his hips and stretched his back. “Yeah,” he grunted. “I’ve found about a dozen of these things.”

Shad felt himself go still. “…A dozen?”

“Yeah, they’re everywhere.”

“Not exactly everywhere,” Shad muttered. “I’ve barely seen them.”

Link looked at the scholar and patted his nearest shoulder. “Hey, I got to a lot of places, Shad. Don’t feel bad.”

Shad sighed. “I don’t. I’m just… frustrated that a lot of my research is still unfinished.”

Link seemed to digest this statement for a long moment, and then he was unlatching and reaching deep down into his largest pouch. “Hey, watch this--” He began pulling up what looked like a long, blue stone rod. Once the thing was free, he held it aloft. “This is the--”

Shad’s eyes bugged. “--Dominion Rod! You--! Wait. You got it to _work?”_ Excitement bled an electric thrill in his gut.

“Yeah, it had to be charged back up, that’s all.”

“Charged up?” Shad parroted, mystified. The Dominion Rod wasn’t red and inert, like the last time Shad had seen it. Now, it softly glowed with a yellowy light, and there was a very faint hum coming from the wings on its end.

Link stepped around Shad and swung the rod in a lazy arc. “Here, this is what it does…” He announced, before he stopped a few feet away from the owl statue. Suddenly, he rotated his grip on the Dominion Rod and a ball of yellow light snapped into being between the rod’s wings. Before Shad could even yelp in surprise, Link swung the rod and threw the ball of light at the owl statue. The statue lit up like it was electric; the ball of yellow light sitting neatly within the hollow opening in the statue's middle.

Shad stared, open-mouthed. “I’ve always wondered about those holes in the statues! I’d been privately thinking they were made as part of an ancient way of moving them,” he explained.

“They are,” Link grinned. And then he took a step back.

The statue hopped out of its cubby hole and followed him.

“The Rod exerts dominion over the stone owls,” Shad breathed.

Link nodded. “Pretty much.” He stepped to the side, and the statue mimicked him. “Hey, you wanna have a go at it?”

The scholar gaped. “Real-- really? _I_ could do that?”

The way that Link held the Dominion Rod was just… just so _cavalier,_ so trusting. “Sure, why not?”

Shad realized, with no small amount of dread, that he thoroughly and utterly adored this man.

          %

“We’ll be back for the horses in a few days, Coro.”

“That’s alright, guy, they can stay here as long as they like. I promise to take good care of them.”

“I know, Coro. And, thanks.” Link shoved the last contents of his saddlebag into one of his magic pouches, and stepped away from Epona. The mare continued to eat grass.

The hero waved to the oil peddler and gestured for Shad to follow him. Without Shad asking, Link reached out and grabbed the scholar’s duffle, and hefted it over his shoulder.

“Oh, thank you.”

“No problem,” Link hummed. “We have to hoof it from here on out, Shad. There’s no road beyond that gate." He pointed at said barrier.

Shad made a little noise of thought. “Why, old boy, don’t you mean we have to ‘feet it’ from now on? Since we have, uh, feet, and we’re not riding any longer… and horses, you know, they… they’re the ones who have hooves…” The scholar’s voice trailed off as his words rang back at himself. “I’m sorry.”

But Link snorted with laughter. “Shad, I never knew you were so funny.”

“We learn new things every day,” the scholar murmured.

Link pushed the Faron Woods gate to swing wide, and then stopped. “Get your lantern out, Shad,” he ordered. He reached into a pouch and retrieved his own, flicking a match to light it. “We’re about to pass through a dark grotto. I lit magic torches inside a while ago, but I don’t know if they’re still burning.”

Shad pulled out his new lantern and held it out for Link to light with the still burning match. “I’m good in the dark,” Shad assured.

“That’s good,” Link said, walking through the opened gate. “But this dark is full of keese and rats, and those suckers sure like to bite. It’d just be better if we can see them coming.”

Link wasn’t kidding-- the grotto was very dark.

“Just walk behind me,” Link suggested. “So I can take care of any vermin we come across.”

Shad obediently shifted until he was following behind the hero. It wasn’t long before their lanterns illuminated the nest of a deku baba; the light coupled with their footsteps waking the creature. The deku baba quickly stretched itself up and out of its nest, gnashing its teeth, but Link was prepared. A couple of slices with the Master Sword, and the thing was dead.

Shad was a few feet behind the happening, and Link turned to look at him.

“That was masterful,” the scholar complimented.

“I was expecting it. This forest is crawling with baba,” Link said.

They continued to walk.

Suddenly, Link asked: “Shad, do you want to learn how to fight?”

“Who’s to say I don’t already know how?”

“Do you?”

“…No.”

“Well, do you want to learn?” Link gestured to one of his pouches. “Because I have an extra sword you could use.”

“I think your tutelage would be wasted on me, old boy,” Shad said politely. “I’ll just stick to my books,” he laughed.

Link regarded him in the lantern light. “Suit yourself,” he shrugged.

The grotto terminated onto a wide slope that spread down into a clearing so massive, Shad couldn’t immediately see the sides. Judging by the slant of light through the canopy above, it was past midday.

“Hey, we’re in luck,” Link exclaimed.

“How so?”

“This basin used to be full of a poisonous smoke, but now it looks like it’s gone.”

“Well, that is fortunate.”

“Yeah, it used to knock me out as soon as I stepped into it,” Link added, tromping down the slope alongside the remnants of what looked like a bridge. Shad followed, stumbling a little on loose rocks.

They weren’t more than forty feet into the clearing when Link’s hand shot out and grabbed Shad. Shad, in his surprise, stopped immediately.

Link seemed to be sniffing the air. His fingers curled tighter around Shad’s upper arm.

The scholar watched him, fascinated.

“There’s something here,” Link murmured.

“What do you mean?” Shad asked, just as hushed.

The Ordonian went still, dropping Shad’s arm but not stepping away. He slowly drew the Master Sword and slipped his shield down from his back, gripping it.

There was a guttural warble from somewhere nearby.

“Bulblins,” Link snarled, just as the beings in question rounded the bulk of a tree and spotted them. “Stay behind me,” Link barked, pushing Shad back.

Shad’s heart started to pound as the bulblins advanced, trying and failing to stay perfectly behind the hero. Link was preoccupied with trading blows with two bulblins and didn’t see a third come around from another tree and make a beeline for Shad. The scholar backed away as quickly as he could, shrieking when the bulblin snarled something hateful and swiped at him with its club. Shad, reacting on instinct, tried to swing his lantern, but a swipe from the bulblin had the thing spiraling out of Shad’s grip. Shad stumbled on a rock, falling hard on his bottom.

The bulblin followed and lifted its club high above the scholar. Shad shrank back, stiff all over from fear.

But then the bulblin froze, and a length of steel thrust out from its chest. A hiss escaped its twisted mouth, and then it fell forward. Shad scrambled back a bit to avoid touching the thing.

Link stood over the downed bulblin, wrenching the Master Sword out of its back in a hard, jerking motion. He stepped around the corpse and held out a hand for Shad. “You alright?” He asked, voice tinged with worry. The other two bulblins lied in unmoving sprawls on the ground nearby. “I didn’t see that third one, damn. It didn’t get you, did it?”

Shad swallowed, and tried to control his breathing by pulling in deep breaths through his nose. “I’m, I’m fine,” he said, but then pain made itself known in his left hand, and he hissed.

“What is it?” Link asked sharply.

Shad grunted. “My fingers caught a glancing blow from the bulblin’s club; the beast knocked my lantern away from me,” Shad explained, holding his injured hand to his chest. He hauled himself to his feet with help from Link.

Link looked around and spied the scholar’s lantern, returning it quickly. Shad retrieved it with a mumble.

“Let’s take a minute to rest,” Link suggested. He’d dropped Shad’s duffle during the fight, and now walked over to the bag. The Ordonian settled himself on the ground beside it, and Shad awkwardly followed suit, slipping his knapsack down and off his shoulders. The scholar let out a deep sigh and rubbed his hand.

Link leaned over and wordlessly took Shad’s injured hand. The scholar instantly tensed at the contact, but the hero was preoccupied with getting something out of a pouch and didn’t notice. Link pulled out a fold of bandages and a small jar. He set the bandages aside and uncapped the jar, scooping out two fingers of a sweet-smelling salve.

“This should work overnight,” he muttered, spreading the salve over Shad’s skin. Shad blushed a deep, dark red at the sensation, and tried not to let his mind wander.

Link finished with wrapping the injured fingers in the bandage, and dropped Shad’s hand. The scholar’s palm instantly felt cold without the other man’s grip. He fiddled with the knot tied on his new bandages, and avoided looking at the hero. Link withdrew the Master Sword and produced a cloth from somewhere, and began to wipe the blade clean.

They said nothing for a long moment.

And then: “Are you sure you don’t want to learn how to fight?”

Shad watched Link clean his sword, feeling tiredness pull at him, along with a deep sense of helplessness.

“I…”

The Master Sword began to gleam again, dark blood slowly being wiped away.

“…Yes,” Shad said finally. He tried to smile, but it was wobbly. “Yes, I believe I should, old boy.”

Link didn’t smile. “We’ll start tomorrow,” he said. “There’ll be plenty of enemies in the temple to practice on. The temple is that way, over there--” He pointed to the opposite end of the clearing, where Shad could vaguely make out the shape of a gate set into the trunk of a massive tree. “--And, trust me, it’s going to take us a while to get through.”

“Okay,” Shad said.

“You good?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Then let’s push off.”

          %

The big clearing they just left was nothing like the one beyond the gate. Colossal trees towered over them, the very road they stood on was only an ancient, worn-down path in the snaking roots of the biggest tree Shad had ever seen.

“Wow,” the scholar breathed.

“I know,” Link commented. “I was overwhelmed the first time I came through here.”

“They’re just so _big_ ,” Shad sighed, craning his neck to look around. “I know that trees continue to grow larger every year, further and further outwards, and if they don’t have the space, they’ll make the space. The size of these tell me that they’re more than ancient-- They were probably here when the first tribes started to settle in Hyrule.”

“Really?”

“I’d believe so,” Shad nodded.

“Wow,” Link echoed.

“Hey! Buy something!”

“Excuse me?” Shad blinked, looking around. There was the blue bird from before, only now, it was sitting on a hanging perch in what looked like a little shop. The scholar turned to his companion. “Did that bird--?”

“Lantern oil! Red potion! Real cheap, I promise!” The bird squawked. “Don’t get caught without some!”

“Hi, Trill,” Link greeted.

The bird clicked its beak and flapped its wings. “Buy something!”

“One track mind, that thing,” Link huffed a laugh, but walked through the little wooden partition that divvied the toucan’s shop from the rest of the clearing. “I’m gonna refill my potion bottles, Shad. You have enough lantern oil?”

“Um,” Shad pulled up his lantern, and peeked inside the little reservoir at its bottom. “…I am out, I’m afraid,” he admitted.

Link popped a cork into a freshly filled potion bottle and hummed. “Alright.” He motioned for the scholar to come closer, pointing at the vat of yellow liquid. “Just dip it in here…”

Link dropped the appropriate amount of rupees into the bird’s cash box, and then stepped out of the shop.

“Hey, thanks! Thanks a lot!” The bird trilled.

Shad was watching from the other side with a pensive look on his face. “What would happen if you didn’t put in the right amount of money?” He questioned, once he and Link were walking again.

“He’d just make you feel like a jerk,” Link responded. “Call you a cheapskate, insult you; things like that.”

“Oh,” Shad murmured. “That’d be effective enough, I should say.”

“Yeah, what kind of monster rips off a sweet little bird?”

Shad laughed and followed the hero. Their path went along a wide root system which had been hollowed out to serve as a road. It ended at a stone and wood platform tucked into the bulk of the biggest of the clearing’s trees.

“This is the front of the temple,” Link pointed to a small alcove in the fork of the tree’s roots. He dropped his hands, and looked around, toeing the ground. “…We should camp here,” he suggested.

They repeated the same pattern they’d been following for the past two nights: Link would gather the supplies necessary to start a fire, and Shad would sit out of the way with his book on his knee, going over the old entries to ensure they were on the right path.

Link had gone inside the temple only briefly at one point, and had returned with a big smile and three dead keese. He’d cleaned them promptly and stuck them on sticks to bake over the roaring fire. Shad, at first, was leery of the idea of eating something quite literally pulled from the woods, but the smell was too good to pass up. It also helped that Link gave him a wide grin when he took his first bite.

Shad chewed contemplatively. "Don't ever mention this to my mother,” he started. “But I think I’m going to become quite fond of the taste of stringy, miscellaneous road meat."

"Well, that's not 'miscellaneous'," Link pointed out, using his own stick like a professor’s rod. "That's forest bat."

"Your words only further my point," Shad smiled. He took another bite, and hummed. "There's just something about pulling meat off of a stick using only your teeth that really satisfies on a base, primal level."

They ate in comfortable silence, until Link broke it with a question.

"You've never really been outside the city, huh?"

Shad polished off the last of his meat and tossed the cleaned stick into the fire. "Well, not so much, to be honest. I mean, I have been to Kakariko, and you saw firsthand, but-- No, I’ve not been into the wilds, before. Castle Town has everything I need to survive, you know. I’ve taken day-trips to Lake Hylia before, but that was during the high holy days, when they have fairs and trucked in modern conveniences,” Shad admitted.

“I’m glad to be here with you, then,” Link smiled. He took another chomp out of his own fried keese, and Shad gave a lopsided grin.

“You eat like an animal,” he said, without thinking.

Link only replied by tearing off another mouthful.

The sun started to set not long afterwards. Link unrolled his bedroll, and kicked off his boots. He settled back into his thin mat and curled up on his side, facing Shad. “We should get an early start tomorrow,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to tell time in the temple, because a lot of it is deep, deep in the forest where no light really gets to go.”

“Alright,” Shad replied, snuggling down into his own sleeping bag.

The sight of Link was still clear, because the scholar hadn’t taken off his glasses yet. He could easily tell when the hero smiled at him. Shad rolled over to face the other side to keep the Ordonian from seeing the deep blush that stained his cheeks at the expression.

Night bled through their little campsite in a slow, cool wave. The warbles of birds and other daytime creatures tapered off, leading into the calls of nocturnal animals as they started their night.

For some unknown reason, Shad felt too keyed up to sleep. He tossed and turned in his sleeping bag for something like an hour, before he settled onto his back with a huff.

With a sigh, he stared up blearily at the distant canopy above, listening to his blood thump in his ears.

There came a soft snore at his right, and the sound made his heart give a lurch.

He thought to himself, with a rush of heat spreading through him: _‘It’s not for no reason. This is the longest you’ve spent around Link. And he’s literally sleeping **right there** , right next to you, has been for the past two nights, without prompting; he’s just settled in at your side like he wants you near--’ _Shad had to bite his lip to keep from moaning aloud. The trapped sound rumbled in his throat. _‘He’s so close. Close like a lover. You could reach out and touch him--’_

Shad blinked, breathing shallow, and he sucked in a long inhalation to even his sudden panting. His heart hammered in his chest like a trapped bird. Absently, he reached down and folded a hand over the tent of his cock in his pants, and instantly shuddered at the sensation.

Soft snores mixed with the nighttime noises of the surrounding forest reminded the scholar of his place. The campfire had died out completely, weak wisps of smoke twisting up from the dead coals, the whole clearing illuminated instead by the full moon and a spray of bright stars.

He shouldn’t be doing this; not _here_ , of all places. Goddess, not where Link could catch him--

The thought was so dirty that a pulse of pleasure spiked through the scholar.

What would Link do, if he did catch Shad? Scold him?

…Or would he reach out and touch him?

He felt the icy-hot flicker of arousal’s throb as his mind wandered.

Gosh, Link’s touch had been so gentle earlier… Powerful, callused fingers, cradling his own soft hand like it was something precious, tender with its manipulation of Shad’s digits… No one had ever touched the scholar so _kindly_ \--

Shad slipped his hand past the hem of his pants and ran his thumb under his cockhead, a slow, teasing trace that made his belly quiver.

A rustle from Link’s bedroll had Shad freezing and looking over, eyes terribly wide. But the hero’s own eyes were closed, his mouth parted just slightly as he breathed. Shad didn’t move until he heard a series of snores, and was sure the other man was still sleeping.

Link’s face was unlined and slack, and Shad drank in the rare sight of the hero in total relaxation, let it add to every fantasy he’d ever had about the other man, flooding him with arousal.

He laid his head back with a partially bitten-down groan, and opened his eyes.

A monkey was watching him from the limb of a nearby tree. It was _grinning at him_.

Shad yanked his hand out of his pants and snatched the top flap of his sleeping bag high up to his chin, blushing furiously.

The monkey laughed, and swung away into the trees.

All erotic thought left the scholar, the heat that had been sliding like honey through his middle disappearing completely.

Shad remained frozen, heart hammering, for a long while after-- the snuffling snores of the hero and the clicking of cicadas the only sound.

Eventually, when he couldn’t take it anymore, Shad unclenched all over, and blew out a sigh. He wrenched off his glasses and set them on the ground beside his head.

_‘Serves you right, Maidson.’_

          %

Link was right about the temple: It was the perfect place for Shad to learn how to fight, because it was fair teeming with monsters.

“That’s it, Shad! Just slice at it!”

Link had produced from a pouch a simple shortsword for the scholar to use, claiming that it was the perfect size for a novice. Shad had received the blade politely, trying to grip it in the same manner he’d seen the hero perform, but couldn’t ignore how totally foreign the thing had felt in his hand.

Now, they were deep inside the temple, in a room overgrown with trees and grass, and Link was shouting at him about the best way to defeat a deku baba.

Shad took a tentative step forward and whacked his sword against the deku baba’s bulbous head. The creature reeled back, shaking its head, and then snarled goopily at the scholar.

“Use the side! Don’t smack ‘em with the flat of your sword, use the blade!”

“I’m trying!” Shad cried, jumping to the side to avoid a lunge from the deku baba.

Link called: “Now! Chop its neck!”

Shad brought the sword down hard, chopping straight through the deku baba’s stem. The creature gave a shriek, and then went still. Shad, in his surprise, dropped his sword.

Link came over and picked up the sword. “The point of sword fighting is to hold onto this,” he joked.

Shad blushed. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be. You’ll get it,” Link encouraged.

Shad didn’t say anything in return.

Link clapped a hand onto Shad’s back. “You’ll get it, Shad, I promise you will. _I_ had to learn these skills from a ghost,” Link told blithely.

The scholar blinked. “I'm sorry, did you just say-- You learned how to swordfight from a ghost?”

"I think he was one of my ancestors," Link explained. "He started coming to me when I was stuck as a wolf, back when twilight was everywhere, but only taught me special sword skills when I found him again when I was a human."

"It sounds like this warrior still has deep ties to the mortal coil," Shad mused. "And you said his apparition was forwarded by the findings of a golden... what? A golden spirit wolf?"

"That sounds right to me," Link nodded, a satisfied expression on his face. "I knew you'd understand."

Shad merely stared as Link started off again. Everything about this man's life sounded like it belonged in a fairytale.

The temple started to change, the deeper they went. It became less and less of a tree fort, morphing into vaulting walls of stone. There was even a plush red carpet running through some of the passageways.

“I’ve never seen this part of the temple, before,” Link muttered, pushing through a strangely new looking door.

“Is this the work of magic?” Shad asked, shutting the door behind them.

A brand-new torch burned in a shining bracket affixed into a wall at their left, illuminating the first few steps of a stone staircase leading upwards.

“Might be,” Link shrugged.

Shad flipped through the manuscript as he followed. “This area isn’t on the map,” he said, looking around and muttering to himself. They’d gone through two floors of stairs, three corner bends in a long, twisting passageway, and Link had had to push together a series of colored blocks to open a hidden door. “I think we’ve gone further than the author of his notebook envisioned anyone needing to go.”

Link sniffed the air, making a face at how musty it was. “Well, something magical is nearby,” he stated. “I can feel--”

A broadsword slammed itself into the wall beside Link’s head. The blond instantly darted away, while Shad remained where he stood, distracted by something drawn on the wall.

_“Shad!”_

The scholar blinked, looked over, and instantly scrambled away. There was a… a skeleton in armor coming towards him.

“There’s a skeleton with a sword!” Shad yelped.

Link met Shad halfway and pushed the redhead behind himself. “I know! It’s a stalfos!”

“A _what?”_

Link jumped forward and parried a blow with his shield, snarling. “Skeleton with a sword! Bad news! Just kill it!”

Shad fumbled with his sword and scabbard, staying to the edges of the room as Link jumped around, striking whenever he found an opening.

Panic bubbled up. This was worse than fighting bulblins. The scholar rushed forward with a sudden yell, sword held aloft, but was instantly thrown to the side.

The stalfos gave an inhuman scream and jabbed the broadsword at Shad, slicing his arm.

Shad hissed and took a stumbling step backwards, thumping against the stone wall with a grunt as he dropped his sword, the weapon clattering somewhere near his feet.

There was a shout of his name from Link, followed by a series of violent humanoid growls as the Hero finished off the stalfos with a little more force than was necessary. The creature collapsed back into a pile of bones, and with a quickly placed bomb, exploded into dust. Shad coughed as the breeze blew dust in his face.

A sharp metallic slide filled the chamber as the other man sheathed his sword.

"Let me see," Link demanded, advancing on him immediately. The blond had a hand wrapped over the bend of Shad's elbow to keep the scholar's arm straight, and used his other hand to yank away the upper half of Shad's torn sleeve, eyeing the slashed arm in the torchlight. Link hissed with commiseration as he looked, Shad failing to stifle a moan as pain radiated outwards from the wound. "Damn skeleton bastards," Link grumbled, pulling off what was left of Shad's sleeve to apply pressure over the cut with his palm. "It's not deep," he assured, "but it's ugly."

Shad blinked hard, his face twisting up. "It hurts."

"I know, I know..." The shorter of the two gently pulled for Shad to slide down to his bottom onto the floor, careful not to pull at injured skin. "They got me a few times in the past. Their swords aren't poisoned, but they _are_ broken and jagged, which almost feels worse."

"Damn skeleton bastards," Shad cursed. Link barked out a laugh, the blond's smile momentarily distracting Shad from how awful his arm felt.

There was a squeaking _pop_ as Link uncorked one of his potion bottles with his free hand, dropping the stopper from his teeth without a care for where it rolled. He held Shad’s arm out and poured red potion over the wound. Immediately, the pain began to recede, and the blood started to clot.

“I didn’t know that could be a topical solution,” Shad said, when the silence stretched for too long.

Link put down the bottle and pulled out bandages. “Neither did I. I just didn’t want you to have to eat it and possibly get sick from the stress.”

“Huh,” Shad huffed. He obediently held out his arm for the Ordonian. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Big ol’ brain you’ve got, but you don’t know a whole lot, do you?”

“Hey!”

Link laughed, and Shad, despite his flare of offense, smiled.

“Well, the stalfos means something important is hiding somewhere in here,” Link said. “They don’t protect just anything. I’m gonna…”

Shad pushed back up to his feet, absently cradling his arm. “You’re going to, what?”

Link responded by shape-shifting into his wolf form, and immediately began sniffing around the room. Shad watched as the hero pawed at what looked like perfectly smooth stones in the face of the wall, pushing in a secret switch.

“Oh, wow,” Shad breathed, staring wide-eyed as the wall opened at a corner, revealing a small alcove with an ornate chest.

“Wolf senses,” Link explained, once he was transformed. “I can… smell? When something is different somewhere.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

“It’s hard to explain. All I know is I see the world differently as a wolf, and I can find things I couldn’t as a human.” Link strode over to the exposed alcove. “Anyways.”

He knelt and opened the chest, the inside of which emitted a soft yellow light.

When he turned around, he was holding something small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. “Is this what you’re looking for, Shad?”

The emerald was pure and clear, and had been cut with many facets to make it shine with an incredible depth. Link held it aloft for the other to see, catching the light of the torches. The firelight made the emerald almost seem to glow.

“Pretty lil’ bauble,” the Ordonian murmured.

Shad stepped over. “It’s apparently a physical manifest of part of the power of Farore,” Shad stated, reverently taking the stone from the hero’s hand. He immediately folded it in the rest of his torn off sleeve, and stowed it away inside his knapsack. “So, yes. Pretty little bauble.”

Link was standing very close to the scholar. He looked up at Shad, a strange expression on his face which the slightly taller man couldn’t identify.

But all the hero did was give Shad a small smile. “Let’s get you outside.”

          %

The journey back to Castle Town was uneventful.

Link accompanied Shad to the base of the castle’s stairs. “Meet you back at Telma’s?”

“Of course.”

The blond companionably squeezed Shad’s shoulder, and then disappeared into the crowd.

Shad felt the other man’s touch for the whole journey back to Queen Zelda’s study.

It almost looked as if the queen hadn’t moved for the entire week that Shad had been gone.

Zelda raised her head from where she was writing, and openly eyed the scholar’s torn clothes. “You are injured.”

“It’s only superficial,” Shad assured. “Another round of red potion, and I should be fine.”

The queen regarded him. “Was it really so much trouble?”

“Only my inexperience is the trouble, madam. But I am in lessons to learn the way of the sword.”

“Are you, now?”

“Link is a fine guide,” Shad defended. “You, ah, you made the right choice in assigning him to my journey, my quee-- uh, Zelda.” He coughed. “Which leads us to the fruit of our mission--” Shad pulled down his knapsack to rummage into it. He smiled when his fingers hit smooth stone. “Ah, there you are.”

Shad held out the Kokiri Emerald. Zelda paused for a moment, staring at the stone, before she gently lifted it out of the scholar’s palm. The monarch seemed to stare at something deep inside of her mind as she looked at the emerald. Shad chatted politely as he waited.

“I have already taken the liberty of cataloguing the emerald’s prior whereabouts in the book you gave me, my la-- Zelda. So, um. No worries there. I have done my duty.”

Zelda finally blinked, and lifted her face to the scholar. “The next leg of your mission is to find the Goron’s Ruby,” she eventually stated. She inclined her head a fraction. “Are you prepared?”

“I doubt that it shall be very difficult,” Shad commented, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Since the Kokiri no longer exist, it made sense that their jewel would be lost. But the gorons still live, and I’ve read that they are avid cultural historians. I will request official transfer of the ruby from the goron elders myself, my lady.”

“Well, then.” Zelda finally smiled. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Shad grinned, and bowed out of the study, eager to find Link.

-%-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT AS OF 9|9|2018 - I went back and edited the stalfos scene by harvesting from the prior seed planted in the first part, re: Shad's distractability. I think the chapter is more rounded, now.


	2. The Bushes By The Gas Pump Have Gone To Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link and Shad go for the Goron's Ruby, but a freak accident on Death Mountain derails Shad's expectations of an easy mission.

Shad entered the bar with a spring in his step. He spied Link sitting across the floor, and started for the man.

“We are cleared to continue, old boy!” Shad called out brightly.

The blond was sitting at the Resistance’s usual back table, but before Shad could make it over to him, Telma bodily intercepted him. She grabbed the scholar’s shoulders, and twisted him back and forth; examining his bandages, his torn shirt and jacket with a fierce eye. She lifted his still-bandaged hand and manually flexed his fingers, causing Shad to wince.

“What _happened_ , honey?”

“Just some monster fighting, Telma,” Link piped up, taking an easy sip of the pint in his hand.

“Monster fighting?” Telma echoed, loud and disbelieving. “Shad, fighting monsters? Oh, hon, I’d need to see _that_ to believe it.”

“But he did great,” the hero emphasized. He smiled at Shad.

Shad flapped his free hand as his cheeks flushed.

Telma noticed, and smirked. She let go of Shad. The scholar sagged gratefully back into his shoes.

“…You helped though, right?” She asked Link.

“Of course, I did.”

Telma frog-marched and then pushed Shad into the empty seat beside Link. “Then, how come _Shad’s_ the only one injured, huh?” She demanded, helping Shad out of the straps of his knapsack. “I thought this was going to be a joint mission for the both of you.”

“Hey, I’m injured, too,” Link countered.

Shad’s eyes instantly scanned over the Ordonian, heart skipping a beat. “Where?”

Link pulled back from his pint after a moment and smacked his lips. He extended his left hand, announcing as airily as he could manage: “I’ve got a blister on my finger.”

An incredulous snort blew through Shad’s nose before he could stop it. “From _what?”_ He scoffed.

Link’s grin was crooked. “Lighting my lantern.”

Shad tried to make a sound that sounded derisive, but his exhalation came out far too amused. Really, he didn’t think he could be truly angry at Link, even if he tried.

Telma leaned on the upper portion of an unoccupied chair, eyes moving between both men. “Where are you boys headed next?” She asked.

“Death Mountain, to see the goron elders.”

“Kakariko, huh?” Telma snorted. “Well, tell Renado I’m still waiting on his letter, because he never responded to mine.” The publican straightened up to fold her arms and sucked her teeth. “ _Tch_. And to think I had the indecency to show him my--”

“Shouldn’t we be going, Link?” Shad interrupted loudly, ears pinking. Telma frowned at being cut off, but Link smiled a small, knowing smile.

“Sure,” the swordsman said, pushing back from the table.

Shad shouldered into his knapsack as quickly as he could, hoping Telma wouldn’t try to pick up where she’d left off. The scholar had a great enough imagination; he didn’t need help from the other redhead in mentally painting any (horrifying) picture of her “indecency”.

Link leaned over and scooped up Shad’s duffle, same as he had done in Faron, and the scholar felt a twist of gratitude in his chest.

Shad blinked in the sunlight once they were in the little courtyard outside the tavern.

Link shifted from foot to foot, tapping his boots against the stone ground. “To the stables?” He asked.

“I, uh, I need to stop by my apartment first, old boy,” Shad said. He vaguely motioned to his bare upper arm, and the torn stitching of his jacket. “I don’t think this article of clothing is up for another journey.”

“Alright. Lead the way, Shad.”

They were halfway to East Road when Shad had the sudden thought that this would be the first time Link would see where-- and how --Shad lived. Link would be in his house. The Great Hero was about to be a guest in his _home_. Nervousness leapt into Shad’s throat, clogging it. He even almost dropped his keys, his hands were shaking so bad. Thankfully, Link had the manners to stand just behind Shad as the scholar unlocked his door, and didn’t notice Shad’s anxious blunder.

The door swung inwards, creaking as it went.

Link stopped in the doorway and looked down. “Thought there’d be a mat,” he muttered.

“I don’t usually go places where my shoes get filthy,” Shad said, eyeing the blond’s dusty boots.

The swordsman hummed, walking slowly further into the main room, openly looking around. “So, this is how the upper crust lives,” he stated.

“This is how a _scholar_ lives,” Shad corrected, secretly thankful to all the goddesses that his voice didn’t waver with his anxiety. “I’m no nobleman.”

There came a snort. “There’s definitely no nobility here,” Link said, waving a little to indicate that he included himself in that statement.

Shad watched as Link wandered over to one of the many overflowing bookcases, weaving around the stacks of papers and open books. “Do you… Um.” He swallowed, cleared his throat. “Do you like it?”

It took a moment for Link to respond. “It’s cozy,” he said at last, turning to Shad. The Ordonian smiled. “I like it.”

A knot which Shad had not even noticed knitting itself into being suddenly unloosed in his gut, bringing up a relieved sigh into his chest. The scholar nodded. “Well, you are welcome to make yourself at home. I’m going to--” He paused. “Ah, well. I need a shower, as well.”

Link flopped backwards onto an empty spot on Shad’s squashy couch, and nodded. “Do your thing,” he said, unclipping and rummaging around in one of his smaller pouches.

It took Shad an extra handful of seconds to move into his bedroom because he found himself hiding in the doorway, peeking out into the main room-- distracted, completely affixed to his place on the floor by the sight of Link sitting so casually, so easily; so perfectly at peace in Shad’s home. There came a thought that was… stirring, to say the least: That Link could possibly fit into Shad’s life, like a prior unknown, yet desperately sought-after puzzle piece.

That Link could possibly _belong_ here, in this apartment-- At Shad’s side.

Shad wrenched himself from the doorjamb and stalked to the bathroom before the thought could overwhelm him.

He turned the taps until the spray was strong, and stood to the side, waiting for the hot water to make it through the pipes from the building’s boiler.

Shad mechanically undressed, dropping his clothes into a pile on the bath rug instead of folding them like he would normally. There was a faint, short-lived rustling which came from the front room-- maybe Link was shifting around on the couch, and the furniture was bumping the wall --and the same flaming freeze of arousal flipped through Shad’s middle at the reminder that Link was _in his house_. Somehow, this was ten times more stimulating than secretly trying to touch himself in the forest. The psychological pleasure of having the source of his heart’s affection in his home was almost too much.

And, he thought obliquely, there were no interloping monkeys to spy on him here.

Almost mindlessly, Shad plunged his fingers through the nest of wiry red curls on his lower belly, scratching at the roots to make himself shiver. Absently, he wrapped a hand around his cock and instantly shuddered at the sensation, before pulling one quick stroke along the hectic skin and letting go; pinpricks flaring as the steam of the shower hit his flesh.

He stepped into the spray before he could let his mind properly wander. He turned to let the water wet his hair, tipping his head back, and that treacherous little voice in his head started to murmur.

 _‘What if Link lived here,’_ it questioned _. ‘With me?’_

The scholar thumbed over his cockhead, which was already starting to leak, and pulled back his foreskin, trying to tease at the vein running underneath with his index finger. The burning flesh in his grip gave a throb at the spreading stretch.

_‘Would we shower together regularly? Would he want to be naked, and wet with me? Our skin sliding together in this small space--’_

Shad planted his feet as his knees opened wider, his thighs quivering as he started to rhythmically stroke himself. The thoughts alone were enough to warm him from head to toe.

_‘--Would he…?’_

Blood is rushed down, pooling, causing his mind to go wooly as thought of Link’s touch makes his spine arch; makes his skin quiver all over. Shad’s mouth had long dropped open, letting loose little whines that go muffled under the shower spray.

_‘Would he kiss me? Hold me? …Would he let me watch him touch himself?’_

Soon Shad couldn’t resist the compulsion to thrust, and he kept his hand steady, quickening his pace until he started to tremble. Shad found himself mimicking Link’s envisioned ministrations on himself, so similar that he could almost swear it was Link’s palm and not his own. When he imagined Link gripping, so did Shad grip. When he thought of how Link would pull, Shad pulled, too.

_‘How would he look on the verge of orgasm--’_

With one final thrust, Shad came. Liquid heat surged through every vein, stripping him bare. He almost collapsed against the wall, if not for his shaking braced arm.

He stood there, panting, until his skin cooled and the pronounced sensation of blood returning to the rest of his body dissipated. All he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears, and the patter of the shower against the tile. Wet tile. Running water. He was in the _shower_.

Shad all but lunged for his soap.

Goddess, he’d gotten so distracted by just the idea of Link that he forgot to wash!

Actual bathing was done in less than five minutes. Shad closed the taps and stepped out of the shower stall, onto the rug, and quickly wiped himself dry with a handy towel. Dressing took an even shorter amount of time, and the scholar was almost panting again in his haste to make it back to the front room.

Link looked up when the other man walked out. His gaze was unreadable.

“You were in there a while,” he commented.

“I-- I was just savoring the existence of internal plumbing, old boy.” Shad hid his quickly reddening face with his towel by vigorously rubbing his hair. “You know, before we have to shove off for a while again,” he added, muffled by the cloth.

Link snorted. “Now that, I understand.”

The scholar ducked back into his bedroom to hang his towel, and grabbed his knapsack on his way out. “I certainly didn’t see a washroom in Renado’s home,” Shad said. “Shall we?”

Link stood and knocked his toes against the floor to resettle his feet in his shoes. “Yeah, they use outside privies.” He grabbed Shad’s duffle and looked at the redhead. “Aren’t afraid to poop outside, are you?”

Shad colored but managed to roll his eyes with a huff. Link bent double as he laughed.

Shad was already at the door and pushed it open by the time the Ordonian stopped laughing. He gestured towards the opening. “Well?”

Link only smiled as he exited Shad’s apartment.

“Barbarian,” Shad muttered, locking his door and striding away.

Link smirked at Shad’s back. “City fop,” he called, jogging to catch up with the scholar.

          %

They left again through the southern gate. The road was long, and took twice as much time to travel as it had to reach Faron.

Link dismounted by the Eldin spring, and then held Shero’s reins as Shad did the same. The horses immediately shuffled over to the water to have a drink. Link knelt beside Epona’s head and scooped water with his hands, slurping loudly.

Shad took a knee to refill his water bottle. “Gosh, that was a dusty trail,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, it’s the one thing about the road through Eldin that I don’t like,” Link commented. “I should have brought more water.”

Shad stoppered his water, and then took a moment to watch the fairies dance on the spring's surface. "They don't mind us?"

Link straightened up again, grabbing Epona’s reins when it looked like the mare had drank her fill. "They're fairies, Shad. I doubt they mind much of anything that humans do."

Shad copied him, and followed Link’s lead into Kakariko proper.

“So, we’ve got to climb that,” Shad said, nodding his head up at the peak of Death Mountain towering over the little town. “But what are we going to do about the horses?” Shad asked, as they walked the animals down Kakariko’s only road.

“I think we should check into the inn, first,” Link suggested.  “Then we can leave them in the stables beside it, because we’ll be customers.”

Shad made a pleased noise of surprise. “Oh, smart.”

“What? Didn’t think I was capable of a smart thought?”

Shad stopped, blood draining from his face. Panic climbed into his chest. “Oh, n-no, _no_ , Link, I swear I didn’t mean--”

“Shad,” Link laughed. He reached back and gently grabbed the scholar to encourage him to continue walking. A faint squeeze clenched over Shad’s shoulder, and then Link dropped his hand. “I’m just messing with you.”

In the year since the twilight had been banished, Kakariko was one of the many places that had been existing in a sort of constant reconstruction. Elde Inn had been gutted and refurbished, as well as the poor excuse for a stables that had once stood beside the establishment.

A goron stood outside on the porch, slathering paint across the face of the inn.

“It’s even getting repainted,” Link murmured. “Finally.”

The interior of the inn was very similar to when Shad saw it last, but this time, a desk had been erected in the middle of the front room. Link started for it.

“We need a room, please.”

“Very good, sir. Just the two of you?”

“Yes. We came on horseback, too, so they’ll need to be stabled.”

Link received a pair of keys, and instructions to board the horses outside. The Ordonian turned to Shad, jingling the keys on one finger.

“Wanna drop your stuff in the room, and then head out?” Link asked.

Shad smiled. “Brilliant idea.”

          %

There was a grate set into the face of the small cliff, and Link started for it.

“That’s a vertical angle,” Shad stated, staring upwards. “…We have to climb that?” The scholar was already huffing a little from surmounting the steep incline that led here from the village road.

“Either we climb to the top, or you get flung through the air by a goron,” the Ordonian said.

Shad watched Link jump a couple of feet, grab the grate, and smoothly start to haul himself upwards.

The scholar nervously adjusted his glasses. “I’ll… climb, thanks.”

It took the scholar a minute to make his way to the top of the grate; going hand over foot did not come naturally. Shad scrabbled for purchase at the top, but Link stooped down and grabbed his hand and easily pulled Shad up onto the cliff.

Shad coughed through the dust of the trail.

Link was watching him closely. “You alright?”

Shad sat still for a moment, blinking through the grit on his glasses. “Ah, well…” He looked down, over the cliffside, and then at his hands. “My hands are scraped a little.”

Link squat beside the scholar, taking one of Shad’s hands the same way he did in Faron Forest. A bewildered chuckle escaped him. “Sweet Din, you really don’t have any calluses, do you?” Before Shad could answer, Link was already apologizing. “Sorry, Shad, I’m just used to--”

“--Roughing it. I know, old boy.”

The Ordonian grabbed Shad’s forearm and helped him to his feet. “Here--” Link started, digging into one of his pouches. “I picked up these gloves in Castle Town.” He withdrew a pair of dark grey gloves, similar in style to the ones Shad had seen Auru and Ashei use. “I hope they’re your size.”

“Wait. They’re… for me?”

Link had gotten him a gift? Link, the Great Hero, had paid close enough attention to Shad that he felt it necessary to buy him something that would make his life easier? On purpose?

…Link had gotten him a gift?

The Ordonian in question just blinked at Shad. “Well, yeah.”

Shad took the gloves with faint bemusement, mind still whirling at the idea. “How much did you spend on these?”

A snort left the swordsman, who rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point, Shad. How do they feel?”

The scholar slipped his hands into the gloves. He flexed his fingers, tugging on the ends.

“They’re a tad loose,” Shad admitted.

“That’s because they’re made from aeralfos leather,” Link said. “They should shrink to your size after you’ve worn them a while.”

They started walking again.

Shad was still tugging on the gloves. “I fear that wearing gloves in this heat will only cause me to sweat all over them,” he said.

“Nah, don’t worry about that,” Link said over his shoulder. “Sweat is good for leather.”

The path narrowed as it continued upwards, but it wasn’t a straight shot-- it meandered and curved, like it had been carved into the face of the mountain by more than one powerful deluge. Probably from rolling magma, melting rock as it made its way down from the volcano’s peak.

Shad tried very hard to focus on this train of thought as a distraction from how unwieldy he was beginning to feel. Exhaustion was starting to pull at him, giving the ends of his limbs this odd sensation of static heaviness.

“How much further, Link?” He called out. His voice was breathy.

The Ordonian, as usual, was light on his feet and bursting with stamina. If Shad weren’t feeling so out of sorts, he knew that awful, dirty little inner voice inside of him would be having a field day wondering about the extent of that “stamina”.

“Not far,” Link called back. “There’s a hot spring close by here, we can rest there.”

“Oh, thank Nayru,” Shad huffed.

They climbed down into a wide, tiered basin, and then climbed up another grate, and up a series of ledges. By the time they made it onto the last ledge, Shad felt like he was dissolving.

“--You know? …Shad?” Link turned when there was no answer.

“What?” The scholar croaked, trying and failing to side-step a steam vent. The heat was unbearable.

“Shad, are you okay?”

Everything was turning brown, shot through with yellow, like lightning. His eyes didn’t feel right. His brain didn’t feel right.

“I can’t--” Shad licked his lips and swallowed, but there was nothing to swallow. He was hot, too hot; his throat felt like it was made of sandpaper, and his head didn’t feel real. “--I’m… I’m having trouble… thinking…”

Shad fell backwards.

          %

“He doesn’t look so good, brother,” Shad heard a deep voice rumble.

A hot, airy lightness was spread through his head, making everything look hazy and indistinct. Shad reflexively blinked a few times, straining to make out the shapes that loomed above him. Gradually, his vision returned, revealing to Shad that he was lying on his back, and Link as well as the bulk of three gorons were looking at him. Link was squat beside the scholar’s head, one of his hands pressed to Shad’s forehead.

 _Link was touching him_. Shad moaned a little at the passing thought, and slid his eyes shut again. Everything felt adjacent, disjointed. He was so tired, and Link’s gloved palm was so warm--

“Shad? _Shad_.” The hand on his forehead rubbed a circle just once, before making its way down to one of Shad’s cheeks and slapping lightly a few times. “Shad, c’mon, look at me.”

The fast little touches seemed to shake some sense of reality back into him, because Shad opened his eyes somewhat, and locked his gaze onto the Ordonian.

Link adjusted Shad’s glasses until they were even on the bridge of his nose, and ran a hand back through the scholar’s hair. His blunt nails scratched lightly at Shad’s scalp, and another little moan whined mindlessly in the redhead’s throat.

“I’m going to have the gorons take you back down the mountain,” Link said.

The words cut through the out-of-body fog and galvanized the scholar, who tried to shoot upwards, but a blackness immediately bled through his brain and made his head feel ten times heavier, and Shad sagged back against the ground.

“No-- No, I, I have to get the ruby,” he said, half delirious. His own voice felt far away and sounded echoed, like it was coming from someone else, and that someone else was sitting at the bottom of a well. Link’s hands were supporting his head, and the acknowledgment of those strong hands on his person was enough to further scramble his already jumbled thoughts. “I have to, for-- for the queen--”

“No, Shad. You don’t have to do anything except breathe.” Link gently let Shad’s head down to connect with the stone below, and climbed to his feet. “Let me go get that rock for you, okay? You go back to the inn. Don’t worry,” he said, when Shad’s face started to look especially fearful. “I’ll be back down in an hour.”

The gorons straightened as well. Link shook hands with the biggest of them. “Take care of him,” he ordered.

The goron nodded its massive head. “Will do, brother.”

Shad was scooped up into the arms of the creature like a doll, and cradled against its broad, solid chest. The sudden shift in position sent his brain reeling in on itself again, so Shad just closed his eyes. The last thing he saw was Link’s tunicked back, striding into the gloom of a dark cave mouth.

          %

“Heat sensitivity?”

Shad was sitting in the middle of his chosen bed in his and Link’s rented room, not having moved from where the goron had deposited him ten minutes prior. Not that he necessarily had the energy to, that is. After leaving Shad, the goron had gone to collect the village shaman, the only person in the area with human medical knowledge.

“Must be so,” Renado nodded. He stood from where he had been sitting beside Shad, examining him. “The air is also very thin up on the mountain, too, and you said you have no experience with hiking.”

The scholar licked his dry lips. “I don’t…”

Renado passed a full bottle of water to the younger man. Shad received it gratefully. “I’d suggest not going back up there anytime soon, son,” he stated gravely.

A sudden, terrible thought occurred. “But Link, he’s still up there, he--”

“Link has gone up and down from that mountain more times than I can count,” Renado dismissed. “He’ll be fine. The man has the stamina of a pack horse.”

 _‘Ooh, now, isn’t that a fun thought,’_ his traitorous little inside voice observed.

“Quiet,” Shad muttered.

Renado furrowed his thick brow. “What?”

“N-Nothing,” Shad said quickly. “I, I promise I won’t try to climb the mountain again.”

“Good. Now, finish that water, and try to get some rest.”

“Okay.”

As the shaman turned to leave, a memory sparked in Shad’s head. “Oh, Mr Renado!”

The man turned, eyebrows raised inquisitively.

“Telma says she’s still waiting on your letter,” Shad imparted.

Slowly, the lift of Renado’s brow was dragged down, until he was frowning. A tightness stiffened his full lips. “Oh… Telma,” he said, monotonous. “Yes.” But then he didn’t say anything else.

Shad watched the man leave, and sighed at the shut door.

 _‘Good going, Maidson,’_ he scolded himself. _‘You just had to faint like a weakling, didn’t you?’_

Shad sipped at his water bottle and thought.

 _‘At least Link will be back soon,’_ he reasoned. _‘It won’t take long, and so my shame shan’t be too great.’_

Shad looked down at his new gloves, and felt affection leap in his chest. _‘I’ve got to figure out a way to pay him back; for the gloves, and as well as for this errand,’_ he thought.

As he was wont when he was thinking, he pulled his knapsack closer to his bed and withdrew his journal. Writing just put things into perspective in such a way that simply living could not.

Shad flipped through the bulk of already written pages, searching for a fresh one.

          %

When he surfaced, it was well past dinner time. Link still had not come back.

Shad took a meal in the lobby, at a table where he could readily watch the front entrance. But Link never appeared.

He didn’t come back that night. Nor the next night. Nor the next. After four days, Shad was almost physically sick with his worries. Why was Link taking so long? What could have happened to him up there? He remembered the forest temple, remembered the stalfos that cut into him. Shad thought bulblins and stalfos were bad, but Death Mountain was an active volcano. Anything wicked what made its home on the slopes above Kakariko had to be terrible. What was up there, keeping Link from coming back?

Shad barely slept. He kept watching the door, and muttering under his breath-- desperate, urgent prayers to anything that would listen, begging that the Ordonian would return.

But Link did not.

          %

Morning of the fifth day had Shad up before first light, packing and re-packing his luggage, taking inventory again and again of everything he might possibly need.

Link still hadn't come down. He'd gone _into_ the mountain, alone. Shad couldn’t stop thinking that one thought. Link shouldn't have gone into the mountain alone. Because Shad shouldn't have been so damned _weak_. He shouldn't have let him go alone, shouldn't have--

The scholar clenched his fists at his sides and sucked in a long, calming breath. He opened his eyes, and nodded.

It didn't matter. What was done, was done.

Now Shad was going to find him.

The other guests of the inn, as well as the housekeeping staff, were all still asleep, so the scholar carefully descended the staircase, making sure to avoid the squeaky steps near the bottom.

Early morning winds whipped up dust, scratching at his eyes and dirtying his glasses, but Shad merely tucked his shoulders and crossed the edge of the village. He tried to focus his breathing downwind but found it hard to navigate a straight, non-stumbling path up the mouth of Death Mountain’s pass with his face turned into his collar. He squinted against the dust, and peered up at the craggy slope.

Today was especially dusty. Would breathability only get worse as he climbed? Shad remembered the taste of the hot air gusting from thermal vents scattered around Death Mountain; the humidity had been so stifling. Renado had mentioned that due to the mountain's lively nature, you really couldn't depend on the weather to be consistent. It was as if the mountain existed within a microclimate all its own.

Anxiety clenched in Shad’s gut. There was a ghost sensation of fatigue weighing on his limbs at the mere thought of being alone up there.

He listened to the wind whistle over the sandstone slopes. Death Mountain loomed above, taunting him.

Sudden fear constricted his lungs.

_‘...Oh, I can’t do this.’_

But he felt fixed to where he stood, torn between the terror of falling ill again, and the terror of his imagination of what might have happened to Link. As he stared up at the sloping, narrowing path, Shad felt his heart sink into his stomach.

There was a sound on the wind.

He blinked. Up ahead, it almost looked like--

Someone was climbing down.

The figure came closer, carefully picking over the rocky terrain, still indistinct behind the loose Kakariko dust.

Shad pushed a hand up behind one lens, wiping away grit from his eyelid as he stepped forward.

The shape of the walker looked masculine enough, with a short, handle-like protrusion jutting up from behind what seemed like the area of a shoulder--

Heart leaping in his throat, Shad tried to keep his voice from wavering: "Link?"

The swordsman looked singed, and he was covered in dirt.

But he was _alive_.

Link stopped a few paces ahead. He looked down at Shad’s duffle for a long moment, before bringing his eyes back up to meet the blue of the other man’s gaze. "...You leavin'?"

Shad felt himself stare. _'That's all you have to say?'_

"Y-you're okay,” he breathed.

"Well, yeah." Link shrugged, walking closer to the scholar.

Shad’s eyes zeroed in on the disruption in Link’s stride. "...You're limping,” he said, halfway accusing. But Link didn’t look bothered.

"It's just a scratch."

 _‘Just a scratch,’_ Shad mentally parroted, mystified. "You were only supposed to be gone for an hour. I was, I was coming to find you."

Link's eyebrows tilted up with obvious disquiet. "Shad, I'm _so_ sorry. The gorons said they hid the ruby in the old dodongo cavern, but they forgot where it was. Can you believe that? The cavern was abandoned and falling in; I promise I tried to go as quickly as I could. You didn't need to--"

"You were gone for five days,” Shad stressed, voice climbing higher to be heard over the wind. “ _I was going to find you."_

"Hey, hey. You don't have to now. I'm here." Link stopped until he was standing right in front of Shad, his solidity acting as a barrier against the wind. Shad unconsciously curved closer into the lee of the swordsman.

The Ordonian took a finger, and pushed up Shad’s glasses until they were perched back at the height of the bridge of his thin nose. He smiled at the redhead. "I'm alright,” Link said. “And, look--" He reached into his tunic and produced a large, glittering stone set in a claw of gold.

“You found the ruby,” Shad said, awestruck. The morning sun hit the gem in such a way that made it look like it was moving inside; churning like magma.

“Yep,” Link confirmed. He deposited it into the scholar’s empty palm. “I told you I would.”

His hand closed around the ruby. Heat surged through Shad’s face, and made his throat feel like it was clogging up. The sting of tears started to gather in the corners of his eyes, and Shad quickly wiped them away, mindful of the dust. He gave Link a wobbly smile, sucking in a rattling breath.

"...You smell like a trash fire, old boy."

          %

In the interior lighting of the inn, Link really did look terrible.

Shad couldn’t help but lay into the swordsman once his glasses were cleaned, and Shad had gotten a good, long look at the other man. As luck would have it, Renado was stopping by, and Shad demanded the shaman take a look at Link.

“I’m fine, Shad--”

“You were _limping_ , and I know you have potion on you. You were limping despite red potion,” Shad stressed. “Let the man look at you.”

Link was reclining on his bed when Shad slipped out that night. The anxiety of the morning had long since dissipated, and was temporarily covered up by righteous indignation concerning Link’s health, but once the annoyed pique had passed, Shad was left feeling spent. The hot spring above the inn was supposed to be restorative. The scholar ascended the side staircase that led to the roof, and shed his clothes behind the biggest rock in the spring. Once he was sure his clothing wouldn’t get wet, Shad gingerly lowered himself down into the water, moaning at the feel of instant relaxation. It was as if the stress of the day hadn’t even happened.

Shad was halfway into a doze when the water was disturbed. He opened his eyes, and quickly turned away at the sight of Link’s bare skin. The Ordonian slipped into the spring and settled himself against a nearby rock with a deep, heaving sigh.

“Hey, Shad.”

Shad dared not look downwards. Link was _close_. The spring was steamy, yet crystal clear. Shad, himself, was in his bottom underclothes, but the scholar highly doubted that the Ordonian would be just as modest. “I, I thought you were resting?” He asked, voice high.

“I was, but the spring is--”

“--Restorative. Yes, right.”

“Yeah.” Link stretched widely. Shad couldn’t help but stare. “Can’t hurt, can it?”

The scholar looked away. He made no sound, but gave a tight shrug.

“…Are you alright?” Link asked.

At the sound of such concern, Shad looked over, catching Link’s gaze. He temporarily forgot his bashfulness. Shad’s eyes softened.

“…I was very worried about you today, old boy.”

Link exhaled. “I’m sorry, Shad. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s quite alright. You’re here, and you’re in one piece. That’s all that matters.”

Link gave a crooked, closed-lipped smile. “I guess so. And I got the ruby, too. That matters.”

Shad smiled a little. “I guess so.”

Silence stretched between them. Shad was almost calm enough to drift off again.

After a while, Link suddenly said: “Y'know, Telma told me what was up with you, that day."

Shad froze, eyes blinking open. He turned to Link, heart skipping a nervous beat. "What? When?"

Link leaned back against one of the rocks. "The day you got marching orders from the queen. You saw the clock and tried to leave in a hurry, but Telma said something about a blowhard, and your face changed."

"…Huh." Panic bloomed renew within him. Shad tried not to hyperventilate. "What--" He swallowed. "What d-did she tell you?"

"That the man you were going to see didn't deserve to suck your toes, let alone claim you as a beau."

The scholar paused, shocked. And then, despite himself, he barked an incredulous laugh.

"That-- That sounds _exactly_ like something Telma would say," Shad gasped.

Link looked over at him, smiling. "Doesn't it?"

They lapsed into  quiet after that. Shad couldn’t help wringing his hands together beneath the water, the only way he knew to relieve the mounting tension.

"So... You've known,” he said, not really intended as a question.

Link hummed. "'Bout how you aren't into girls? Yeah. I mean, Telma made it pretty clear."

"You're... You're alright?” Hope bloomed, weak and hesitant. “W-with, with how I am?"

The Ordonian’s gaze when he turned it to the scholar was heavy, yet unburdened. "There's nothing wrong with you, Shad,” Link said.

The words were easy, and matter-of-fact, and probably didn’t cost Link very much to think, let alone to say. But Shad reacted as if he’d just been spared from the gallows. The scholar sagged down, until the surface of the water lapped at his chin. He felt boneless, almost exhilarated with relief.

"It's... it’s incredible to hear you say that," the scholar managed to breathe.

Link reached over and pushed a hand onto Shad’s submerged shoulder. "I'm glad.”

          %

“I still want to teach you how to fight, Shad.”

Shad paused for a moment over his breakfast. They were eating in the front lobby of the inn.

The scholar straightened up and wiped his mouth. “You do?”

“Yeah,” Link assured. “I think it’d be good for you.” Link shoveled the last bite of his meal into his mouth, and then pushed back from the table. “I’m gonna go set up some targets,” he said. “Meet me in the graveyard.”

Shad watched the swordsman go, his mind churning. He really, really didn’t want to have to pick up a sword again, but Link sounded so confident and excited-- _“I think it’d be good for you.”_

By Nayru, how could he possibly say no?

The scholar quickly ate the rest of his breakfast, and hurried from the inn.

          %

Shad hiked into the graveyard with only a mild feeling of hesitance in his belly.

“There you are,” Link smiled. He was straining upwards to hang a target from a rocky outcropping beside one of the graves. Shad ambled closer to watch.

“I got these from the Malo Mart,” Link explained. “I used them to practice when I first got my bow.”

“Ah.” Shad looked around. There were about four other targets, spaced randomly around the cemetery, as well as a tall pole striped with red slammed into the dirt on the upper ledge near the back. “You, um. Do you expect me to hit all of these bullseyes with a sword?”

“We’re gonna be trying things other than sword skills today,” Link informed.

“Oh.”

The swordsman grinned, and clapped his hands together. “Alright! No time like the present.” He reached down into one of his pouches and produced a large pair of steel claws. “Let’s see how you do with these.”

Shad only eyeballed the… things. “What… What should I do with them?”

“Just slip them over your hands-- Yeah, like that. Grip the handle inside, and then point it up at the top of that pole. You feel a button by your thumb? Right there? Good, that’s the launch button. Okay, aim at the pole, and then press the button.”

Shad obeyed-- and missed.

“Just try again,” Link encouraged. “I know you’re within range. I tried it myself before you got here.”

The hookshot finally connected to the pole on Shad’s fourth try, but the scholar was so unprepared for the jerking snatch of the chain that he let go of the hookshot out of reflex. It went whizzing through the air, and clung fast to the top of the target pole.

Link stared up at the hookshot. “…Okaaay,” he drawled. “Give me the other one; I’ll go get it.”

Link retrieved the weapon and landed on his feet beside Shad, who had gone pink with embarrassment.

“Sorry,” the scholar mumbled.

“Maybe the hookshots aren’t for you,” Link suggested. “We’ll find something you can use, Shad. I know we will.”

They didn’t.

Shad tried the bow, but he kept dropping arrows, or releasing them too early so they flopped into the dirt. One arrow made it to the target, but was released with such force that it ricocheted back. He tried the slingshot, but almost broke his glasses when the thing snapped back into his face. The spinner was an outright “no”; Shad fell off of it ten times before he refused to step onto it again. And the ball and chain was so heavy that, when he tried to lift and swing it, his wrist rolled wrong and Shad wound up dropping the ball on his foot.

The scholar swore colorfully, snatching off his glove to rub at his bruised wrist.

“…Huh,” Link grunted, dropping the last few links of chain into a pouch. “Maybe the sword _is_ your best option.”

Shad frowned. “You think?” He snapped.

“Well, you didn’t seem to take to anything else,” Link pointed out.

Shad kept rubbing his wrist, but stayed silent. Shame burned on his cheeks.

He felt a nudging on his shoulder, and looked over. Link was holding out the sword and scabbard Shad had used in the forest temple.

“Just take it, Shad. If you can kill babas and not drop the thing, then you’re pretty much good to go. I promise.”

Shad stared at the scabbard, feeling like its dull sheen was mocking him. _‘Such a simple, beginner’s weapon, and yet here I am, afraid of it. Some man of the wilds you’re turning out to be, Maidson.’_

The scholar took the sword with a nod.

Link reached his hands above his head and stretched. “Well, I guess that’s that,” he yawned.

“Apparently so,” Shad mumbled.

“Let me take down these targets, and I’ll meet you back at the inn, okay?” Link said. “We’re pretty much done here in Kakariko, aren’t we?”

Shad thought back to the gleaming ruby tucked safely away in his knapsack. “Yes, I believe so. You found what we came for.”

Link was already jimmying loose one of the lower targets. “Back to Castle Town first thing in the morning, then,” he called over his shoulder.

          %

Shad walked into Telma’s bar the same way he had done nearly a week ago; steps springy, heart filled with lightness. Queen Zelda had been intensely pleased about the transfer of the Goron’s Ruby, and praised Shad highly. She hadn’t been interested in seeing his addition to the illuminated manuscript, but Shad was sure the monarch appreciated his efforts, all the same.

“Part three is upon us, old boy,” Shad announced, as he walked up to the Resistance’s favourite table. “The third leg of our trip is cleared, and the queen already awaits our return!”

Ashei leaned back in her chair, eyeing Shad. “A third leg, huh?” She gave a little quirk up with her lips. “That sounds fun.”

“Shut up, Ashei,” Link laughed, and Shad colored at the unforseen double entendre.

“It sounds like it’s been quite the journey for you two,” a deep voice added. Shad looked over, and found Rusl walking further into the alcove.

“Oh, it definitely has been,” Shad confirmed.

“Link was telling us all about it,” the older Ordonian informed. “You say it took you almost five days to reach Kakariko?”

“Yes. That is the normal amount of time it takes to go from here to Eldin Province,” Shad said. “Link said so.”

“It is,” Rusl hummed. He put a hand on Shad’s shoulder. “Son, would you mind helping me get a round for everyone from the bar?”

Ashei and Link whooped as Shad said: “Not at all, Rusl.”

Shad politely followed the older swordsman to Telma, and stood patiently at the bar as Rusl put in an order.

When the publican was busy and turned away, Rusl turned very close to Shad. “It doesn’t usually take Link five days to reach the neighboring province,” he stated, apropos of nothing.

Shad blinked. He took a mindless step back. “Excuse me?”

Rusl didn’t seem concerned. “Link is dogged,” the man said. “He doesn’t stop unless he absolutely has to, when he’s travelling. He’ll travel all night-- on foot, even, if he feels he needs to get to a place.”

“Really?” The scholar paused. “We’ve been stopping to make camp every night,” he murmured.

“…Maybe he’s just looking out for you,” Rusl mused. “I’ve only ever seen Link go slow when he’s playing with the children, back in Ordon.”

A flinch of insult quirked at Shad’s brow. “Are you suggesting Link thinks of me like a child?”

“No, Master Shad.” The older man put a kind hand on Shad’s upper arm. “I’m suggesting that he _cares_ about you. You only alter your habits like that when you actually care about the other person concerned.”

“O-oh.” Rusl raised his eyebrows at Shad, and the scholar turned maroon. “ _Oh_. Well, um. Tha-thank you, Rusl. That’s, uh. That’s some good-- good information.”

Shad turned and stalked back to the table right before Telma appeared with another round.

          %

“We can bed down at my apartment for the night,” Shad suggested.

“Good plan,” Link nodded. They said their goodbyes to the other members of the Resistance, and made their way over to East Road just as the sun was setting.

Link sat in the same place on the couch that he was in the last time he was at Shad’s apartment. “You wanna get an early start in the morning, right?” He asked. “Then, we should get some sleep.”

“I’ll get you a blanket,” Shad volunteered. He ducked into his bedroom and retrieved the spare duvet he only used when it was terribly cold. Link took the blanket with a huff of thanks, spreading it out on the couch, and positioning himself on half of it.

Shad remained. He stood beside the couch and fidgeted.

“What’s eatin’ you, big brain?” Link joked, eyeing how Shad was picking tightly at his thumbnail.

“Link, ah…” The scholar paused. “Would you prefer it if we didn’t have to camp every night?”

Link genuinely looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m used to travelling that way, yeah,” he admitted. And then he shook his head. “But I don’t mind, Shad. You’re new at this. I don’t want you getting run down.”

Shad paused for a moment, before taking a seat beside Link on the other half of the couch.

“Rusl said you’re… dogged,” Shad recited. “That you don’t slow down for just anyone.”

Link bobbed his head, and shrugged. “Well. You’re not just anyone, Shad.”

Shad stiffened. His hands curled into nervous fists on his knees. “I-I’m not?”

And there it was-- a new energy in the room, something that felt tense, yet positive. Shad didn’t know how to react to it, so he pushed thought of it away.

“Of course, you’re not.” Link was looking at him with fondness. “I like you, Shad.”

“I like you, too--”

“No--” Without warning, Link reached over and took Shad’s hand for a third time. This time, it wasn’t to tend to an injury, or to comfort the scholar’s worries. It was… It was a loving gesture.

Shad forgot to breathe.

“I really, _really_ like you.”

_“No, Master Shad. I’m suggesting that he cares about you.”_

The scholar sucked in a sudden breath when he realized he badly needed air. His hand twitched within Link’s own. “…So that’s why you were alright with what Telma told you,” Shad considered.

“Yep,” Link said popping his lips. Shad breathed a laugh, and then lost his breath. Link had scooted closer to Shad, his eyes questioning. Somehow, Shad understood what the Ordonian was after.

Reflexively, the scholar pulled off his glasses and wiped them with the edge of his shirt. “…I, uh. I.” He replaced his glasses, turning red. “I r-really like you, too, Link.”

A slow grin split the blond’s cheeks. He leaned closer.

Shad could feel his breath on his skin.

“Can I kiss you?” Link asked.

“…Please.”

They barely touched, just a soft brush of lips. But to Shad, it was _mind-blowing_ \-- He was sure, in that instant, that that gentle little kiss had to be the most intimate connection he’d ever experienced.

Link pulled back, and leaned his forehead against Shad’s own.

“I’ve never felt this way about someone, before,” Shad admitted, finding his voice after a moment. The confession left him feeling nakedly vulnerable.

“Me, either,” Link replied. Shad’s heart soared. "Not even with Ilia. My whole life, everyone around us always assumed we'd get married one day, but--” The blond paused. “I started thinking a few years ago that that'd be a terrible idea.”

"When I'm with you, I don't feel the way I feel when I'm around Ilia,” Link continued. He looked up, caught the other man’s gaze.

Shad felt frozen, partly with shock, partly with joy. This was _Link_ \-- the man he had been crushing on for over a year --confessing to him, confessing to a similar mind, a similar inclination; confessing that _he_ _found Shad desirable, as well._

"Shad,” Link said. One of his thumbs made small circles on the back of Shad’s soft hand. “I feel so much more. I don't want Ilia that way."

His next words were a fan of hot breath over Shad’s mouth.

"I want you."

          %

They separated after a few more kisses, and Shad retired to his bedroom. Although, he barely slept; his mind was reeling.

He had to be dreaming. He had to be dead. This couldn’t be real.

Morning dawned with a brand-new helping of anxiety for the scholar-- What if Link changed his mind? What if, what if it had been a trick? A lie? Or, heaven forbid, some sort of gamble at Shad’s expense? Link and Ashei were pretty close, and the shieldmaiden was known for having a dark sense of humor. What if she had convinced Link to play with Shad? Would she do that? Would Link do that?

Shad lingered fully dressed in his bedroom for a long while, even after he heard through the thin walls that Link had awoken. He was struck by a surge of terror, horrified at the thought that last night had been some sort of game. He almost wanted to cry.

“Shad?”

Link was knocking on his door.

Shad took a rattling breath and snatched off his glasses, wiping his eyes. “C-Coming!”

_‘Oh, this is foolish. I can’t hide in here forever.’_

When Shad opened the door, Link stood on the other side, smiling as if everything was normal.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Shad mumbled.

Link leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of Shad’s mouth, and instantly, Shad felt silly. Link was being genuine; _of course,_ he was. There was no nefarious ulterior motive. The Great Hero didn’t do things like that. Link was straightforward and honest, even to a fault. Shad was being insecure.

“I, I was thinking we get breakfast, and then swing by the Malo Mart before we leave,” Shad suggested. Link reached out and wove their fingers together, nodding.

“Sounds good to me,” the blond hummed.

When they reached his stoop, Shad gently pulled his hand free of Link’s grip. Whatever… _Whatever_ this was, or might have the potential to be, Shad didn’t want to ruin it with scandalous acts of PDA, just yet.

Link didn’t say anything, but Shad thought he saw a slight frown when the scholar unlaced their hands.

Breakfast was lovely. Link regaled Shad with a humorous tale of how he’d taken down his first bulbo in East Hyrule Field, and Shad was laughing so much that he forgot all reasons why he should feel anxious.

They migrated through Central Square until they got to the Malo Mart.

“I got a suit of armor here that only works if you have an insane amount of rupees on you,” Link said, pulling open the front door.

“Really?” Shad exclaimed.

“Yeah, something to do with money and magic--”

“Out of the way!”

Shad bounced back from a hard chest; he’d been so preoccupied with listening to Link’s story that he’d walked right into someone walking out of the Malo Mart.

“Oh,” Shad pulled off his glasses to reposition them. “I’m so sorr--”

All words died in his mouth.

It was Tarus. And hanging off of the nobleman’s arm was this… this petite, doll-like woman with long, goddess-like hair, flawless features, and-- goodness gracious, were those _real?_

Inadequacy suddenly ate into the scholar’s middle.

“Shad?” Link turned back.

“Good to see you, Shad.” Tarus offered, voice dripping with honey.

Shad felt himself go cold. He instantly wished the ground would swallow him whole.

“T-Tarus,” Shad managed.

His ex swanned around Shad and stepped into the street, talking to his dainty little piece of arm candy like he hadn’t just run into the man whose heart he’d stomped on two weeks ago.

It took Link putting a hand on his shoulder for Shad to snap back to reality. “Shad?”

“I, uh--”

“Who was that guy?” Link asked, craning his neck to try and see through the bustling crowd.

“He was…” Shad tried to begin, but his tongue felt like it was dying inside his mouth.

Link was watching him closely. “…Do you still want to go to the Malo Mart?”

Shad managed to shake his head.

The swordsman grabbed Shad’s wrist and started walking him through the Square. Shad was so rattled that he didn’t care about the touch at all.

Link led them back to Shad’s apartment, gently ordering Shad to insert and turn the key. Only once they were safely inside, and Shad was sitting on his couch, did Link speak again.

“Shad,” he began. “Who was that guy? The one in front of the Malo Mart?”

“My…” Shad tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “My f-former beau.”

“The blowhard,” Link said, his expression telegraphing that he was rapidly putting pieces together. “The one from the other day.”

“Yes,” Shad breathed. He leaned forward onto his knees and covered his face.

“What did he do?” Link demanded.

Shad sat up again. “He didn’t do anything except… Well, he outlined my glaring faults, and ended our relationship.”

A puzzled frown contorted the Ordonian's features. “What faults?”

“He’s, he’s the son of one of the richest merchants in Castle Town,” Shad explained, trying to latch onto the conveyance of simple fact instead of focusing on how much his insides hurt. “He has a lot of responsibilities, a lot of expectations placed on him and his future; he needed something better than just the poor, pathetic son of a butler to carry his name--"

“That’s horseshit!"

Shad stopped, looking up at Link.

“You are not pathetic, Shad,” Link emphasized. “You’re the smartest person I know, and I’ve met literal gods.”

“Yes, but he--”

“So what? _So, what?_ So what, if he’s some fancy-pants nobleman with buckets of money and a gold toilet, or something? You’re Shad Maidson! You could probably write and read circles around that asshole. You understand the language of the sky beings! You never give up! You’re incredible!”

Link sat beside Shad and grabbed his hands. “It’s either muscles, or money that everyone cares about, I know,” he stressed. “But you’re something more, Shad. You’re brilliant. No, really, you are. I could listen to you speak for hours. I could watch you read for more. You can take something as boring as a fucking statue of, of _whatever_ , and turn it into something new and beautiful with how you describe it. You’re amazing.”

Shad stared, wide-eyed. His heart skipped a beat.

“Thank… Thank you, Link,” he managed.

Link made a small smile, and then pressed a quick kiss to Shad’s mouth. He looked into Shad’s eyes, and then gave another. And another.

The atmosphere changed.

Link leaned closer, and closed the distance between them. He paused with his mouth hovering over Shad’s own, sharing his breath. This wasn’t soft, gentle affection. This was something else; something intense.

Eyes asking for permission, Link gave Shad a last chance to back out.

A part of Shad wanted to pull away, was suddenly terrified of messing this up. But he ignored it, closed his eyes, and sealed their lips together.

Link cupped the back of his head, and Shad found himself drawn closer, though Link applied no pressure. On impulse, Shad slipped his leg over Link’s thighs, and squirmed his way onto the blond’s lap. He settled in close and rolled his hips wide, earning a groan against his lips when they slotted together. Shad deepened the kiss. He wove his fingers into Link’s thick hair and tugged gently.

Shad began to lose himself to the slick taste of Link on his lips, to the strong contours of the body in his arms. He nipped Link’s bottom lip, relishing in every whine, every little groan he wrung from the other man; the noises fanning the fire inside him.

Link pulled away from Shad and leaned against the back of the couch, staring up at the scholar; his lips kiss-stung and shiny in the lamplight.

“Shad, if you don’t stop--”

Link broke off into a moan when Shad grinded against him. His head tipped back, exposing the column of his throat. Pushing his hips down, Shad dragged their groins together in a slow slide and mouthed up to Link's jaw.

They didn’t make it out of Castle Town that night.

-%-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I know this chapter sucks. (It's unbeta'd, for one.) For some reason, I just could NOT get it out. I tried, y'all. The only parts I actually feel confident about are the smoochy scenes, and the scene where Shad nearly has heatstroke-- I drew on my own personal experience with heatstroke to write that. 
> 
> I promise the next chapter will be so, sooo much better. (I'm already working on it!)
> 
> I love you all! Thanks for reading!


	3. About A Sad Man Sayin' "They've Forgotten How"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An excursion to Lake Hylia brings the two closer together, but Shad's past threatens to tear them apart. Also, they go to Ordon.

“So, I’m thinkin’ the water stone is going to be in this lakebed temple I went through before,” Link said. “Seeing how the other two have been hidden in temple-like places, too.”

Shad shuffled through the illuminated manuscript, trying to verify Link’s suspicions. “From what the prior author catalogued, I think you might be correct,” he said.

“I think I might be correct, too,” Link hummed. “The temple is full of stuff. I doubt I saw it all.”

The manuscript shut in Shad’s hand with a dull _thwap_. “Well, we’re going to have to see it all.”

As soon as Shad had shoved the queen’s book back into his knapsack, Link swooped over and grabbed up the scholar’s hand and pressed a fast kiss to the back of it. Shad stumbled for a moment, his cheeks pinking at the soft affection.

“What was that for?”

The expression on Link’s face was easy. “I’m just really glad I’m getting to go to all these places with you,” he explained, unwilling to let go of Shad’s hand.

“Yes, well,” Shad swallowed and pulled his hand free, his fingers instantly going upwards to fix his glasses. “I-I’m glad for it, too.”

Link smiled small. He clapped the same hand onto Shad’s shoulder, and squeezed.

Shad blushed at the feeling.

Everything about his… whatever he was doing with Link still felt so unreal, so much like a dream, like it might evaporate in an instant if he wasn’t paying attention. Was it a relationship? Could he call it that?

 _‘Yes, that is what I’d call it,’_ Shad thought to himself, watching as Link darted ahead to check the passage leading down into the lake. _‘Sweet Nayru, how I would love to call someone like that mine.’_

The stairs which led into Lake Hylia were narrow and uneven, and had no guard rail to speak of.

“We’re gonna have to walk single-file, Shad,” Link said. “I’ll go first.”

“Alright.”

“Keep a hand on the wall and on me, if you have to,” the swordsman ordered, already clomping down the steps. “I don’t want you slipping.”

“Link, I’ve taken this exact route before. You forget, I’ve been to Lake Hylia on more than one occasion.”

“If you find yourself falling,” Link continued, as if Shad hadn’t spoken. “Just tuck and roll.”

“Tuck and roll,” Shad murmured, huffing a laugh. “Got it.”

The base of the steps ended at the edge of the entrance to Lanayru’s spring.

“Okay, made it down,” Link announced, reaching out a hand for Shad to take as he descended the last few steps. He laced their fingers together before Shad could pull away. “The temple is thataway--”

Shad looked around, recognizing where he was. “Wait,” he said. “Give me a moment, please.”

He dropped the swordsman’s hand and walked into the shrine.

The inside of Lanayru’s spring was cool and dark, lit up only by the pink shine of fairies.

Shad found the snake statue easily, and took a knee in front of it. He folded his hands and murmured a prayer, and then he was standing again.

“You’re pretty religious, aren’t you?”

The scholar looked over. Link had followed him in, and was watching Shad with a fond expression.

Shad reperched his glasses. “Well, just so much, really. Lanayru is the patron deity of scholars and historians,” he explained. “It’d be foolhardy for me not to give my thanks when in the neighborhood, you know?”

Link moved closer, until he was pressed to Shad’s side. One of his arms wove around the scholar’s thin waist. “What did you pray about?”

“That my sword would be as mighty as my pen.” Shad paused, looking down. “And… A-and, I asked, um, for Lanayru’s blessing, since they spoke to you before.”

Link’s blue eyes were almost black in the gloom of the spring. “Blessing? About what?”

Shad couldn’t stop looking at his mouth. “F-for us.”

A snort. “That’s adorable.”

Surprised indignation instantly flooded Shad, completely destroying the rising tide of what had been anxiety. _“Adorable?!”_

Link laughed and wrapped both arms around the scholar. “I think everything about you is adorable, Shad. But, thanks. I appreciate the sentiment.” He hummed, petting Shad’s hair. “Can’t beat any extra blessings.”

            %

They returned to the outside of the shrine, and Link was already reaching inside his largest pouch.

“Alrighty then,” he muttered, producing a large swath of blue and gold… something.

“What is that?” Shad asked, stepping closer to inspect it.

“It’s zora armor, designed for Hylians to get to swim and breathe like one of them.” Link held up a piece of long, fin-like headwear. “It’s made out of dead zora scales, and lets me breathe underwater.”

Shad’s curiosity was already leaping at the chance to investigate something so foreign. “Magic tunic,” he murmured, fingering the overlapping scales.

“Magic tunic.” Link smiled, pulling off his hat and handing it to Shad. He shrugged out of the Master Sword’s bandolier and his shield’s strap, dropping the weaponry with a clang.

Shad received the hat with a blink, as if suddenly realizing what Link was going to do with the tunic.

“You can’t change here!” The scholar hissed, his cheeks pinking.

Link was already out of his boots and leggings, his chainmail thwacking to the stone in a heap, and pulled his tunic and undershirt up and off in one smooth motion. Shad raised his head and stared up at the top of the shrine mouth. “There’s no one here, Shad,” he reasoned. “Plus, I need to wear this so I can get into the temple.”

Shad huffed, and then he paused. Genuine puzzlement overrode his modesty. “Wait,” he said, looking back down. Link had already pulled up the flippers-and-leggings part of the armor, and was working on buckling himself into the blue tunic. “How am _I_ supposed to breathe underwater?” Shad asked.

Link stopped and thought. “Huh,” he grunted, pulling on the headwear. “I guess you can’t.”

Shad frowned deeply.

Link, now completely kitted up, turned his full attention onto Shad. The frown had him frowning, too. “Hey, hey,” he started, walking over to the scholar. His flipper boots flapped on the stone, and Shad halfway felt like laughing. “This isn’t like the ruby, Shad. You’re not failing-- You didn’t fail then, either. We had no idea you’d get sick like that. You just…” Link paused, and then he shrugged. “You just can’t breathe underwater, and I can. With this stuff.”

Shad blew out a long sigh. “I know, old boy. I just feel like a failure.”

Link put his hands on Shad’s upper arms and leaned in for a faint kiss-- not lingering, because he knew how Shad was about PDA. “You sit here and add to Zelda’s book; I’ll go look for that rock. I’ll try not to be too long.”

Shad, in a moment of boldness, leaned forward and pecked the swordsman on the mouth, and then stepped out of his hold. “You, ah. You do that, Link.”

With a couple of floppy flipper steps, Link waded into the water, and then disappeared in a dive.

            %

It was hours later when Link resurfaced. Shad was sitting against the wall outside the spirit spring, and had been thumbing through his father’s journal to pass the time.

The scholar leapt to his feet, shutting the journal as he strode over to Link. He knelt down at the water’s edge, eyes scanning the swordsman for any signs of distress.

“Well?”

Link propped himself up against the stone steps, paddling to stay in place in the water. “So, get this-- I’m swimmin’ around down there,” he says. “And I spy some royal guards. Y’know, the Zora royal guards? Anyways, I go up to them and ask if they’ve seen any fancy stones in the temple. You know, make our job easier if I knew where to go. And they said the stone I described sounded like something their king has! Remember Ralis? He apparently has the water stone.” Link hauled the rest of himself out of the lake, puddling noisily. “We need to go up river.”

Shad had stepped back to avoid being splashed. “Amazing,” he murmured. “It’s not in a temple at all.” He watched Link unbuckle his headgear with a frown. “Do you need a towel? I don’t have one,” Shad said.

“Nah, just my normal kit. It’s magic; I’ll be dry in no time.”

Link shed the zora armor and slid back into his underclothes, tunic, and leggings. Incredibly, he was drip-dried in seconds after he was dressed.

“Okay. Well,” the swordsman began. “Since there’s no reason for us to stay here, I think we should stay here.”

Shad was already shouldering into his knapsack straps. He paused, frowning. “Come again?”

Link pointed upwards, past the end of the long wooden walkway. “There’s a really big grotto up there, in the cliffsides, and I know monsters like to hide inside it. I think that’d be a good place for you to practice your sword skills.”

Shad’s heart sank a bit. “Oh, yes. Weapons training.” He’d been privately hoping that Link had forgotten, but of course, the swordsman had not.

“We’ve already established that your best bet is the sword, Shad. It only makes sense to make sure you get better at it,” Link reasoned.

The scholar let loose a bellow of a sigh, and Link smirked.

“Lead the way, old boy.”

            %

The grotto was very long, and was made up of a series of chambers all connected like spokes on a wheel. They dropped Shad’s bags in the first chamber, and carried on with only their weapons into the next.

Shad gripped his sword beside Link, watching as the Ordonian killed a tektite; trying his best to absorb the habits of swordsmanship.

“Just like that,” Link encouraged. He rolled his sword handle in his hand, jauntily spinning the Master Sword for a moment before it was resheathed.

“Okay,” Shad nodded. Another tektite was bouncing along the right passageway.

“You got this, Shad!” Link shouted.

The tektite heard his voice, and started for them. Shad raised his sword and counted silently to himself, as he’d been instructed, waiting for the beast to be within range. When the tektite was not four feet before him and paused in a low crouch, readying to spring upwards again, Shad jabbed the tip of his sword down into the monster’s eye and twisted. There was a shriek and a series of convulsions, and then the tektite was dead.

Pride rushed through him. Shad whirled around to find Link in the gloom. “How was that?” He panted.

Link’s face was unreadable. “Damn,” he grunted.

Shad’s brow crinkled. “What?”

Link stepped closer to Shad, his face shadowed from the awkward shine of their lanterns hanging at their belts. “I didn’t get the chance to say this in the last grotto,” Link began. “But. You look really good in firelight.”

Shad relaxed. He rolled his eyes, even as he blushed to the roots of his hair. “Oh, shut it.”

Link leaned in close. “What are you, suspicious about me sayin’ I like how you look?”

Shad reflexively adjusted his glasses, but did not yield his space to the other man. “Well, yes, actually. I have learned the hard way that people do not pay compliments without expecting some sort of moral dessert in return.”

“That’s not true, Shad.” Link took Shad’s free hand, and started walking them down the cleared passageway. “Sure, there are folks who might call you something nice because they only want to get into your pants, but I don’t think of compliments that way. I say you look good because I want _you_ to feel good, not me.” The swordsman shrugged, blithe and carefree. “That’s all.”

Shad was quiet for a moment. He dropped Link’s hand once they were in the new chamber, and started for the light post. “…So, you _don’t_ want to get into my pants,” he said, lighting the torch. “Good to know.”

There was the sound of boots stopping short on stone. “Now, hold on a second,” Link protested. “I didn’t say that.”

Shad laughed loud.

Something suddenly screeched in the darkness beyond.

In an instant, Link was poised low in front of Shad, the Master Sword held at a protective angle before the scholar. Shad tensed, staring unseeing into the distant tunnel mouth. Already, his mind was racing to identify the source of the noise.

“What could it be?” Shad muttered.

Link was frowning. “I don’t know--”

An arrow whizzed out of the darkness and embedded itself into the stone behind their heads. Both men immediately split up.

“Remember what I taught you!” Link shouted to Shad, as bulblins started to flood the chamber.

Shad was doing well. He was actually managing to parry some blows, and knocked one bulblin back into its fellows like bowling pins with a particularly hard smack from his sword.

“I think I’ve got the hang of--!” Shad started, but was cut off as a particularly large, hulking behemoth of a bulblin swung a massive hammer his way.

“Duck and weave, duck and weave,” Shad muttered to himself, doing exactly that to avoid the swing of the giant hammer. He lunged over and found an opening on the monster’s flank, jabbing his sword into the meat of the thing’s side. There was an ungodly howl as the bulblin reared back and wrenched itself free of Shad’s sword, and swung its hammer wide. The hammer caught Shad’s sword against the metal of the wall and snapped it in half.

Shad stared at the blunted piece of remaining sword, blood going cold.

The bulblin raised its hammer above Shad’s head.

_“Shad!”_

Link threw the Master Sword like a spear, impaling the large bulblin through the heart. The creature dropped like a stone, but in the few seconds that Link was without his blade, the last bulblin lunged up and slashed a large knife along Link’s ribs. Link staggered, before rallying in an instant and punching the knife-wielding bulblin on the nose. The bulblin dropped their knife, and Link scooped it up, driving it into its master’s throat. The bulblin gave a gurgle, and dropped to its knees. Link kicked it in its chin, and the bulblin fell over backwards.

Shad was at Link’s side immediately. “Are you okay?!”

Blood was seeping into the Ordonian’s tunic, blooming like the ugliest of flowers. Shad felt his heart start to race. _‘This is all my fault.’_

“I’ll… I’ll be fine, Shad,” Link said, hissing as talking aggravated his wound. He slid down to his knees, and then settled on his bottom, digging into a pouch as he tried to breathe.

Shad, himself, was trying to breathe. “This is all my fault,” he verbalized.

“No, it’s not,” Link grunted. He produced a small bottle with a bright blue potion inside, and wrenched the stopper free with his teeth. He slammed the potion in one long gulp, making a face at the taste.

Shad dropped to his knees beside the swordsman. His hands were shaking so bad, he dropped the hilt of his broken sword. Hot tears started to build in his eyes.

“Shad, really,” Link breathed. “I’m gonna be okay. See, look--”

The Ordonian lifted his bloodied tunic to show his midriff. Shad instantly winced at the sight of jagged skin and seeping blood. But, the blood was slowing, and the skin was slowly knitting itself back together, thanks to the potion. The wound healed until it was a scabby line of angry pink. Shad, without thinking, used one of his gloves to wipe blood from Link’s side. The swordsman winced.

“Sorry,” Shad said.

“It’s alright. I’ll be good as new in a couple of days, I promise,” the blond said. “Blue potion is good shit.”

“If I-- If I hadn’t’ve broken my sword--” Shad began, but Link put a hand on his nearest arm to silence him.

“Shad, we didn’t expect bulblins to be using this grotto as a hideout,” he reasoned. “This is not your fault. It happens.”

 _‘It happens,’_ Shad repeated to himself, but then he thought: _‘It probably doesn’t. He’s just trying to make me feel better.’_

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Link tried to force his voice to ring bright, but exhaustion was evident in his tone. “But I think we did enough for today.”

Shad nodded, throat feeling tight. “Okay.”

Link grabbed Shad’s forearm and used the scholar as a brace to leverage himself up to his feet. “Let’s go back to that main chamber and make camp,” he said.

Shad tried to speak, but he could only nod.

For the entire journey back to the main chamber, Shad could not stop replaying the scene of Link’s stabbing.

_‘Because you were so ineffective, you broke your fucking sword, and Link had to save you-- again. Good going, Maidson.’_

Shad was thankful for the dark of the grotto, because he could feel heat burning high in his cheeks and behind his eyes; the telltale signs of imminent tears.

_‘You’re so useless. Link could have died back there, because of your weakness.’_

Link stopped beside Shad’s bundles with a sigh, gingerly lowering himself to the floor until he was leaning against one of the walls.

Shad stood beside him. “Is it safe to stay here?”

“Bulblins are stupid,” Link said, stretching his legs out. “If one attacks, they all attack. I think we got them all, Shad. Don’t worry.”

Shad nodded, although he couldn’t dispel the feeling of urgency from his gut.

Link maneuvered himself until he was sitting up on his bedroll, and eyed the scholar. He opened his arms. “C’mere, Shad,” he crooned.

The scholar went to the swordsman’s lap like a child seeking shelter.

“Don’t worry about me so much,” Link smiled, petting down over Shad’s hair. “I’m tough, Shad.”

Shad sighed.

But then, a desperate, resolved thought occurred.

He gently pressed his lips to Link’s own, initiating a slow makeout. Shad feels a spark of shame, and boldens his motion. Self-loathing lights a new burst of adrenaline in his belly, and the scholar reaches down to pull up Link’s tunic.

“Hey--” Link starts to say, but Shad presses a finger to his lips and looks at him with such earnest, pleading eyes.

“Please.”

“…Okay,” Link murmurs, returning his mouth to Shad’s own, trying to chasten their kisses, but Shad is insistent to use his tongue, and Link melts in the face of the redhead’s passion.

Shad pulls down Link’s leggings and delves a hand expertly through the underclothes between Link’s legs and grabs at the other’s half-hard cock.

“Whoa, Shad, _Shad_ , slow doooowwwwn--" His words broke off into a long groan as Shad’s hand went into a fist around the base of Link’s cock, pulling upwards in one sure stroke.

With his free hand, Shad reaches into his nearby duffle and produces a bottle of lantern oil. He has the bottle open and dribbled over his working fist before Link knows what’s happening, and when the dry squeeze turns into a slick slide, the contact snaps little rocking pulses from Link’s hips, and the blond makes a guttural, approving sound.

Shad’s head is tucked into the curve of Link’s neck, mouthing at his pulse point.

"Please, Link--"

The words came out quick, stuttered and earnest as his fist continues to work: "I'm clumsy, a-and I am awkward and it, i-it seems I won't ever, ever be able to improve... I can't, I can't shoot a bow, I can't climb mountains, I cannot even defend myself with the sword you’ve given me, no matter how hard I try--"

"--But, _damn it_ , I know I can do this."

Shad wrenches himself back and hurries to shove his pants down and off his legs.

“Shad--"

Any words from the swordsman meant to protest otherwise were strangled together into one tight, choking exhale as Shad grabs Link’s cock and pours more lantern oil, and then climbs back into the blond’s lap to push himself down to the root.

Shad gasps. Link’s thicker than he thought, and the dull burn of adjusting to his size makes him mutter a swear. He forces himself down to Link’s hips, and the pain of it is familiar; something Shad can latch onto and focus on. He drags himself back up, and the low, shuddering moan that it draws from the other man makes the majority of the pain the scholar hadn’t been enjoying entirely worth it.

Again, he drops back down.

Shad sets the pace, riding Link in a solid, consistent rhythm. He makes sure to pull back up in a way that makes Link’s fists curl and his jaw clench, then he drops back down with a roll of his hips to feel Link press against the walls of his hole so tightly, Shad thinks he might burst.

Honestly, in a distant, delirious sort of way, Shad has the thought that the idea isn’t too unappealing.

After a while, though, Shad finds the wherewithal to speed up, breathing far heavier than he had been before.

He thinks: _‘I have to make this good. I have to, have to give him everything he didn’t know he wanted-- I have to prove I can be useful.’_

He curls forward like an obscene question mark, down over the Ordonian, and his head dips low as he gasps into Link’s ear: “I can do s-so much more than fight, I can, I’ll do a-anything you want-- _Ohh_ , anything y-you want me to. I, I promise, _I promise.”_ He deliberately clenches to hear Link moan, and the change in angle slams against his sweet spot, wrenching a yell from Shad’s throat.

_‘I can’t lose him.’_

Link’s lips are practically on Shad’s skin, the heat of the blond’s breath rolling across him in waves. “ _Shad_ ,” he pants. “God, goddess, S-Shad, you’re-- You’re so fucking _tight_.”

Shad’s toes curl on the ground at that remark, digging against the stone of the cave. The fire that had been building in his body since he’d started fucking Link blazes brighter than ever, and he could almost swear that he’s burning up in an inferno, suddenly crying the name of the man he’s riding as his orgasm rips mercilessly through his body.

Almost at the same time, Shad feels Link tense up, strong arms locking themselves around his body as he snarls  _Shad’s_  name. There’s another, smaller half-orgasm almost triggered when he realizes that he’s made the Great Hero come. Link’s nails dig half-moon crescents into the meat of Shad’s upper thighs, his fingers trembling. Somewhere it registers that Shad will likely have bruises to contend with tomorrow.

He doesn’t care. In that moment, he couldn’t care even if he tried.

            %

They slept together in a tangled heap.

Shad rolled over, nose snuffling against a hard chest as he slowly began to wake.

Link was already up, and was watching him. “Alright?” He asked.

Shad realized his glasses weren’t on his face, because he could see Link perfectly in his nearsighted, magnified clarity. “Where are my glasses?”

“Took ‘em off for you,” the swordsman murmured. He brushed the ever errant curl off of Shad’s forehead, and just looked at him. “Are you okay, Shad?”

The scholar scooted up on his side until they were nose to nose. “…Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”

"What you said," Link began, petting down Shad’s sleeve.

Shad felt himself tense.

Link’s hand continued to pet. "Do you really think I won't want to have anything to do with you if you can't swing a sword?"

Shad paused. "It's not just--" He swallowed. "It's not only that."

Link didn’t say anything.

"My past... lovers, they weren't--” The scholar paused, cleared his throat as an excuse to take in a deep, steadying breath. "They were not patient men. Really, the outcomes were always my fault; I chose them, so I chose who they were, wouldn't you say?"

"Shad--"

"I've never been popular, Link." Shad’s face was somber. "My childhood was lonely, and my adulthood seems to be following the same path. I don't have anything going for me, you know-- No, no, it's true. No one's going to come up to me in a town that's not my own and gush at my name, like they do to yours. I'm no brave knight, I'm certainly not the savior of the world. Sure, I can pronounce big words, but what use is stuffy prose in a society where physical practicality is king? The most I can claim is... is..." He swallowed. The pressure of the need to be understood felt like a clog in his throat, and his next words came out high and quick, and uncomfortably tight: "I've got a nice face and I've got a slim figure, and I've got--"

Shad choked, recognizing what he was saying. In his haste to convey himself clearly, Shad had nearly verbalized one of his ugliest memories. The thought of sharing such humiliation with Link-- with _the Great Hero_ , of all people --made his stomach clench in on itself like a vise.

Anxiety suddenly screamed before him in a chasm. It gaped, ready to pull him down if he allowed himself to listen to the memory. But the words had already sunk their claws into his mind, and refused to go away.

Shad’s heart started to flutter, and his throat felt like it was closing. Sweat beaded on his hairline.

_'Oh, my goddess, will you stop talking? No one's going to ever listen. Quit pretending that tongue of yours has any worth to it for someone when you're not on your knees.'_

"--ad, Shad, come on."

Distantly, he realized that he was hyperventilating. Link had sat them both up and had taken him by the shoulders, and was now watching him closely with sharp, worried eyes.

"It's okay. It's okay; here, look--" Link loudly dragged air into his lungs in one long, even breath and held it. Then he let it go just as slowly. “--Breathe with me, Shad.”

Shad tried to obey. He found his way into the embrace of strong, steady arms, his face pressed against the base of Link’s throat; Shad tried to focus on the swell and shrink of Link’s breathing. Link’s cheek pressed against his temple. To Shad’s utter mortification, the Ordonian instinctively started to rock him gently in place.

“What was that, Shad?” Link asked quietly, after Shad had controlled his breathing into something calmer, less upsetting.

“Thinking too much,” The scholar said, his breath hitching. The warmth of Link’s tawny skin sank into him.

A rough hand carded gently through the hair on the back of Shad’s head. “About last night?”

It took him a moment, but Shad eventually nodded, rubbing his cheek against the front of Link’s tunic.

A sigh reverberated in the Ordonian’s chest. “I could tell something was wrong, Shad.”

“Was it… was it not--” Panic climbed into his throat. “Was I not good?”

“You were _great_ ,” Link breathed.

Shad very slightly relaxed.

“But it felt wrong,” Link continued. Shad looked up. The blond’s expression was thoughtful. “You know it felt wrong.”

Shad hung his head, deeply ashamed. But Link lifted his chin and looked him in the eyes, matching blue for blue.

In a tone that was sure, Link declared: “Shad, you don't ever have to do that again, okay?"

The redhead paused. "…You don't want to?" The scholar’s voice was small.

There was a long moment where Link didn't say anything, and seemed to be looking at something far away, inside his mind. He closed his eyes, licked his lips for courage. "I do. So bad."

Shad's heart sank. He returned the press of his ear to Link’s chest.

" _But_ ," Link emphasized, adjusting the cradle of Shad in his arms. "I don't want you doing anything with me just because it's what a bunch of other guys have told you that you _have_ to do, in order to 'matter' to me. That's stupid shit. I want you to _want to_ , not because you're trying to prove something. I don't like you just for that, alright? That's not even really on the list, for me."

Link pulled up a bit, signaling to Shad that he wanted to face him. Reluctantly, the scholar obeyed.

The Ordonian’s face was earnest. "Shad, I like you because of who you _are_ , not because of what you can do. I liked you when all you carried was a journal and a pen. I liked you when you were using big words I didn't understand, and I liked you when all you wore were checkered socks and a stuffy jacket. I liked you then, and I like you now."

Gentle, oh so gentle roughsoft hands came up and cradled the scholar’s jaw, and brought Shad’s head forward until he and Link were forehead to forehead.

"You don't have to prove anything when you're with me,” the swordsman murmured, eyes closed. “I already know you, and I like what I've learned."

%

“So, we’re going to have to go back to the original owner to get this fixed,” Link called out, once they were back on the cliffside, out of the grotto.

Shad adjusted the hang of his knapsack. “Where is the original owner?”

“Ordon!” Link’s grin was broad. “This is Rusl’s old sword.” He looked down at the broken blade, rolling the handle in his hand; expression thoughtful. “This is actually a great opportunity for me to introduce you to everyone back home.” The swordsman leaned over to Shad and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, babe.”

Shad nodded, biting his lip.

Link was apparently back to normal, chatting away about the unexpected detour they were needing to make, but Shad felt… ashamed, to put it simply. Not necessarily about the broken sword-- swords could be fixed, after all. It was about-- All of it, all that had happened in the past howevermany hours.

What they’d done. What _he_ had done to Link. What Link had said to him, afterwards, even; he felt ashamed to have had to have been told such affirmations. It wasn’t assault, but it was wrong, Link was right-- it had been born from wrongness, from Shad’s lingering issues. Is that really all Shad saw of himself: someone, or some _thing_ for another to fuck? Was his esteem really that low?

The scholar received his duffle when Link passed it to him.

Goddess-- And Link was wanting to introduce Shad to his family, despite everything.

It was in this moment that Shad realized, very intimately, that he did not deserve to have Link.

“--So we’ll get there quicker. Sound good?”

The swordsman turned his handsome, easygoing face up at Shad, and the scholar reflexively nodded. Link nodded, too.

"Good," he said. He then shed his tunic, and started walking down the bridge towards the water.

"What are you doing?" Shad called after him.

"Gotta wash my clothes!"

"Wash your--? _Oh."_ Shad felt a blush crawl up his neck. He hadn't even noticed, but last night had to have meant that there were-- __stains_. _

Hurriedly, he looked over himself, and found no foulness on his clothes. 

He sighed.

            %

They’d had to return to Castle Town for their horses, which had taken them an extra day of travel. By the time they reached Ordon, Shad was sick of the road.

But Link’s home province was beautifully quaint; mountainous and green.

Link pulled Epona to stop in the middle of a small clearing. To the left was a huge tree with… a balcony?

“This is my place,” he said, gesturing his chin towards the tree.

Shad craned his neck, and could spy the sight of a ladder, and a door almost perfectly camouflaged in the bark of the tree. “Incredible,” he said, marveling at the spread of the canopy above.

Link dismounted, and then helped Shad down. “We can leave the horses here,” he said. “They can graze wherever they like and won’t get in the way.”

“Are you sure?”

“I promise. Epona runs wild here, and nobody seems to mind.” Link patted the mare’s thick neck. “But we should really unsaddle them.”

Untacking their mounts took a handful of minutes, and by the end, Shad was antsy.

Link sidled up close to Shad’s side, and wrapped his fingers around the scholar’s own. “Come on,” he said, clearly excited. “I want you to meet everyone.”

Shad let himself be dragged along, secretly biting the inside of his lip to quell his anxiety.

There was something about being alone with Link here, in Ordon, that made Shad intensely nervous. He was in Link's native province, in his boyhood home; a place where everything was foreign to Shad but well known to the hero. He felt nothing like the way he'd been when he had invited Link into his apartment in Castle Town; the introduction of the blond into his lonely, cramped little flat had felt natural, like fitting a puzzle piece into a previously empty space.

The addition had been effortless.

But now, being here-- so far from anyone he knew, completely at the metaphorical mercy of Link's entire hometown--

They entered a gated passageway and passed through a decorative arch, and rounded the bulk of a curbed ridge until they were standing on the edge of a little village. Warm early evening sunlight painted the sky in a gradient of oranges and purples, casting the meandering little neighborhood in a homey, welcoming light.

Shad tensed when an unknown voice cried out: “Link! Link’s back!”

The scholar fiddled with his glasses, and tried to pull his hand back, but Link’s grip was firm.

What if they didn't accept him? What if they thought Shad wasn't good enough for Link? Was the swordsman as firm in his resolve as he appeared to be while they were travelling alone?

It was a group of children who came running up to see them, first.

“Link! You’re back!” A short boy with severe little eyebrows ran up to Link and wrapped a hug around the swordsman’s middle. He looked over at Shad curiously. “Who’s this?”

“This is Shad,” Link introduced, wiggling their linked hands. Shad was too tense to move.

“We’re travelling together on orders of the queen,” the swordsman patiently explained.

“ _Oooh_ , the queen,” A leggy little freckled thing of a girl sighed. “How dreamy!”

“Is he a hero, too?” A shy-looking blond boy who was hanging back behind the other children softly piped up.

“Yep,” Link confirmed, smiling at Shad. “Of a type.”

The scholar managed to crack a quick smile for Link’s sake.

Footsteps introduced the sight of Rusl, and an unknown woman with an infant on her hip. She looked startlingly similar to the blond child.

Rusl waved once they were close enough. “Link.”

“Oh! Rusl, Uli.” Link was practically bouncing in place. “It’s so good to see you!”

“You, as well,” The woman-- Uli, apparently --smiled.

“How long have you been back, Rusl?” Link asked.

“A good week.” The older swordsman pointedly glanced down at their linked hands, and then looked up at Shad, smiling kindly. “Good to see you, too, Master Shad.”

“G-good to, ah, see you, too, Rusl.”

Link squeezed Shad’s hand.

“What are your plans, boys?” Uli asked.

“To find some food,” Link moaned, to the laughter of the children. “All we’ve had is baba jerky and red potion.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Rusl said. “We finished pulling a new batch of cheese today, and there’s meat simmering back at the house.”

Uli jiggled the baby on her hip. “You kids should get back to your homes, too,” she ordered sweetly, her voice soft and maternal. “It’s time to eat, soon.”

The children whined, but obeyed.

Rusl looked back at the two other men. “Would you two join us, please?”

Link grinned, and Shad tried to force himself to copy the expression.

            %

The sheets on Link's single-person cot were simultaneously soft and rough in an overwashed, worn in sort of way; both pilled and slick from years of use. Shad shuffled himself down until he was lying on his side, his back to the wooden wall. He could hear Link moving things around on the bottom floor, but the lantern burning from a hook above Shad's head illuminated only the sleeping loft and kept the rest of the treehouse in darkness.

They’d had supper in Rusl and Uli’s cramped little home, Shad and Link practically sitting in each other’s laps just to have room to eat. But as Shad finished his share of cheese and some part of goat, he found that he really didn’t mind. Rusl and Uli were kind people, and their children were polite. Plus, Link seemed incredibly fond of them.

The shadowed sight of Link's upper body appeared at the top of the ladder. "You comfortable?"

He nudged at the pillow beneath his head with his temple, smoothing it. "Yes, thank you," Shad replied.

The hero hauled the rest of himself up onto the landing. He crossed his legs in the small space beside his bed and leaned his arms onto the side of mattress, watching Shad. "Y'want me to put your glasses up?"

"Oh," Shad breathed. He removed his glasses and passed them to Link, who folded them carefully and rest them on a nearby shelf. Link was stripped to his underclothes, and, after he blew out the candle, started to crawl into the cot beside Shad, who wiggled as far over as he could.

"Are you sure you'd like for the both of us to sleep here?" Shad chattered nervously. "There's barely enough room. I could--"

"No," Link dismissed, sidling even closer to the scholar. "I like you nearby." As if to affirm his words, he settled a strong palm over Shad's hip.

            %

Rusl had no problem with the broken sword-- He’d actually laughed, and congratulated Shad on fighting fierce enough to snap it.

Link was too busy affirming Rusl’s compliments for Shad to correct the swordsmen about how the sword had really been broken.

“It’ll take me a couple of days to fix it, though,” Rusl told. “Come back for it later.”

Link stretched. He wasn’t in his green tunic and leggings, but rather wore short pants and a white shirt, and a traditional Ordonian waist blanket. And, no shoes. He looked supremely comfortable. Shad felt like he was seeing a side of Link few ever got to see.

They spent the day fishing and swimming, and playing with the village children. When the sun started to set, Link curled his fingers with Shad’s own and walked the scholar up the hill, to the ranch.

Fado was busy trimming the hooves of one of the goats, and only had time to nod in Link’s direction and shout about how happy he was to see the blond. And beside him, holding a basket of tools, was--

“Ilia!” Link crowed, smiling bright. He quickened his pace, pulling Shad along with him until they were on the opposite side of Fado and the goat.

Ilia looked up and smiled at Link. Her smile fell as she caught sight of Link and Shad’s clasped hands.

“Who’s this, Link?” Ilia inquired. Shad felt like her careful tone was only halfway, half-assedly masking a telegraphed feeling of unhappiness.

“This is Shad. He’s a scholar,” Link introduced, clearly sounding proud.

“A scholar?” Ilia made a face. “I’m sorry, it’s just-- Books, that’s so boring. You must not get out much.”

Shad’s brow furrowed. “I, uh. I get out just fine, ma’am.”

Link frowned. “Shad’s on a quest from orders of the queen,” he said, a touch defensively.

“That’s nice,” Ilia hummed.

Link’s frown deepened.

Fado dropped the goat’s hoof and straightened up with a groan. He turned to Link and Shad and, spying their linked hands, grinned broadly. “Good for you, Linky boy!” He said pleasantly.

“Yes. Good for you,” Ilia parroted. She wasn’t smiling.

Shad felt something turn in his middle; a submissive, fearful instinct. He very slowly pulled his hand free of Link’s grip, and leaned over to the blond to murmur: “I’m, uh. I’ll be back at your place.”

Shad made it to the gate when he heard the yelling start.

            %

The scholar was curled up in a chair, reading when Link stormed in about an hour later.

Shad closed his book. “…What happened?”

“Ilia’s a _bitch_ ,” Link spat venomously.

“I’ll ask again: What happened?" Shad paused. "...It had something to do with me, didn’t it?”

“She thinks I’m throwing my life away, being with you.” The swordsman started to pace. “Thinks you’re a useless city boy I’ll wind up having to take care of for the rest of my life.”

A horrible curl of self-loathing wound itself around Shad’s heart. “Well, she’s not wrong,” he mumbled.

Link stopped. He looked over at Shad. “Excuse me?”

The scholar pulled off his glasses and sighed. “Link-- Think about it. She’s right. You’re… from Ordon, from a farming background; you live off the land and fight monsters, and I’m…” He sighed again, deeper this time. “I’m a boring old bookworm who doesn’t get out much. I can’t help you.”

“Shad, come on. You can learn,” Link insisted. “If you can learn the sky beings’ language, you can learn anything. Figuring out how to plant crops or raise goats will be a cinch.”

“But I fear Ilia might be right about--"

The blond came over to Shad’s side and grabbed his hands. “No! She’s wrong! She’s a jealous hag, that’s what she is. She doesn’t know us, Shad.” Link’s eyes were pleading. “She definitely doesn’t know you like I know you. She doesn’t know anything.”

Shad, for a moment, froze. But the pull of Link’s proximity was too great, and he found himself leaning against the swordsman and adjusting himself until he was sitting on the edge of his chair, his head on Link’s belly, and his arms wrapped around his waist. Link’s arms came up and wrapped around Shad’s head and shoulders, stroking the redhead’s curls.

“Let’s just go to bed, okay?” Link suggested.

They followed the same routine as the night before; Link securing the treehouse for sleep, Shad waiting for him on the cot.

Link blew out the bedside candle and slid in easily beside Shad. The bed was small, but they’d found a way to make it work.

One of Link’s hands came up and traced Shad’s jaw in the moonlight. “I’m sorry Ilia doesn’t like you,” he said.

Shad was quiet. “…I don’t particularly like me, old boy,” he admitted, in a small voice.

“What?”

“It’s true.” Shad sighed. “Can we just sleep? Please? I don’t want our pillowtalk to turn into an examination of my personal damages.”

Link didn’t respond, but he did scoot closer to Shad and pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss to Shad’s lips. Shad sighed through his nose, grateful for the affection. After a few moments, Shad was starting to feel lightheaded from the kissing. He pulled back and exhaled across Link’s mouth.

"Roll over," Link suddenly breathed, leaning back in to suck a warm tingling spot just below Shad’s jaw.

Shad moaned, chin tucking to his collar as his toes curled. He obeyed the blond, rolling his hips in a way he knew would make penetration in this position easier. But Link only pulled him very close, and wove his arms around to Shad’s front and palmed him.

“Wha--?”

“You need this,” Link said firmly.

“Link--”

“Just let me love you, big brain.” The words were incredibly fond, and soft. “Stop talking. Start moaning.”

He'd never been vocal when he was with past lovers. Well-- no, that wasn't necessarily true. He'd been plenty _vocal_. Just not demanding. Speaking up in favour of his own pleasure had never... gone over well, so Shad had decided early on that all that mattered was to keep his beau happy and satisfied.

But Link was nothing like the men of his past.

Link's touch was gentle, yet sure, making Shad feel raw under his skin. It wasn’t long before his need was clawing at his insides, scraping against open nerve endings. His joints were starting to lock, stomach dropping with impending release, and the build had him babbling-- A choked, stuttering stream of praise and mindless worship for everything about Link, finally tumbling over the edge with a broken kind of scream.

Shad came back to himself to the feel of Link smiling against his cheek. The scholar couldn’t help but breathe a laugh.

            %

“Here you go, Shad.” Rusl presented the sword and unsheathed it. It looked as good as new.

Shad received the weapon with a polite inclination of his head.

“Where are you off to, now?” Rusl asked.

“Zora’s Domain. We need to ask their king for the Zora’s Sapphire,” Shad informed.

Rusl was quiet.

“I’d be careful, if I was you, when you go back to Castle Town,” the older man intoned.

Link was immediately frowning. “Why?”

“Auru said the queen’s been… acting oddly.” Rusl made a pained face. “He’s seen strangers in the court, too. Dangerous looking fellows who don’t seem to want to talk to anybody but the queen, and only then, alone.”

Shad and Link shared a look. “We’ll be fine, Rusl,” the younger swordsman assured.

Rusl’s heavy brow was lowered, and his eyes seemed searching. But then he raised his eyebrows and smiled, shrugging. “Maybe old Auru was just being paranoid again,” he said, casually.

“Maybe,” Link nodded.

-%-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Okay, yeeeaaahh. That was a lot. Shad's got more issues than Vogue, just remember that. It's going to be a theme throughout this fic. Will he grow? Will he change? Will he crumble and fall? Fuck, I'unno! I'm just writing this damned thing!


	4. And The Baby Quit Suckin' When The Milk Went Sour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link and Shad go to collect the Zora's Sapphire and take it to Zelda, but something... isn't right with the queen.

“The road into Zora’s Domain can’t be reached with horses,” Link announced, dismounting. “Well, most of it _can_ , but I don’t like to leave Epona standing out on her own, if I can help it. We’re going to board the horses in Castle Town, and then continue on foot through Northern Hyrule Field.”

Shad followed Link’s lead and directed Shero towards the western gate. “Alright,” he said, adjusting the drape of the gelding’s reins over his palm.

But then, he slipped on a bolt at the end of the drawbridge, and nearly fell on his face.

Link turned, stopping for a moment. “Okay, this has gone on far enough,” he said, face quirked into a half-frown. “You need better shoes.”

Shad stopped, too, and looked down. He toed the cobblestones thoughtfully. “But… I love these shoes,” he said.

“They’ve had it, Shad.” Link pointed. “Look at them-- They’re city clogs. They don’t know what to do with themselves when you’re out in the wild. They’re falling apart. You need _boots_.” The swordsman knickered to Epona, signaling that it was time to walk again.

Shad followed, gently pulling Shero along as he thought. Link was right, damn him. Shad’s shoes had seen much better days. The soles were flapping loose, and the toe supports had long worn slack.

The scholar finally sighed. “Fine, I’ll get better footwear.”

“From your apartment?”

Shad gently maneuvered Shero through foot traffic, trying to stay in line behind Epona. “I’d much rather spend my money on books and writing supplies, old boy, instead of shoes,” Shad corrected, speaking loud to be heard over the sounds of the city. “This _is_ my only pair.”

Link’s laugh was pure and delighted. “I can’t believe I have more shoes than you!” He threw a cheeky look at the scholar from over his shoulder. “To the Malo Mart!”

The horses were unsaddled and tended to at the stables in record time. Shero readily drank from the bucket Shad struggled to lift upwards, which made the scholar laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Link called out. He was busy with a two-handed fork, picking out a forgotten corner of Epona’s current stall. “Is it me? Can’t be the way this place was cleaned; whoever penned their mount in here last did a piss poor job of mucking it.”

Shero slopped water onto the floor as he popped his lips and moved his head away from the bucket, visibly satisfied. Shad was still smiling. “No, I-- It’s silly,” he answered.

“Well, try me.” The sounds of horse doings being flung into a handy wheelbarrow never wavered. “I’m easy. I like silly.”

 _‘And here I was, thinking it was **myself** who was the ‘easy’ one,’_ Shad’s sarcastic interior suddenly quipped. Consciously, the scholar shook his head and admonished himself: _‘Oh, hush.’_

“I led a horse to water, and I made him drink,” Shad said aloud, chuckling. He set down the water bucket. “Seems there’s an exception to every rule,” he added.

Link backed the wheelbarrow out of Epona’s stall, and reached over and slung the lock back into place. He maneuvered the wheelbarrow towards the mouth of the stables, clearly headed for the midden. “You’re an exception to the rule, Shad,” Link said as he passed, bouncing his thick eyebrows for emphasis.

Shad stared after him, momentarily bemused. “And how’s that, old boy?” He called out, though Link didn’t answer.

When the Ordonian returned, he leaned over quickly to peck at Shad’s lips with his own and scooped up the scholar’s nearest hand into a warm, fast grip. He was already talking by the time he’d led Shad out onto South Road, and Shad was too engrossed with listening to his words to mind the public display of affection swinging like a banner in the air between them.

“You think I don’t know what everyone expects of The Great Hero?” Link began. “I know they’re all just sitting around, waiting for me to fulfill their assumptions that I’m gonna step out with some little noble lady on my arm, or shack up with a princess or something, some day. Because that’s what champions of a kingdom are just supposed to _do_ , y’know? People put us up on pedestals, and assign these fantasies of untouchable elevation-- like I don’t piss and shit and bleed, same as they do.” The swordsman gently wiggled their clasped hands. “I’ve even heard some gossiping about _‘the day he’ll finally be claimed by the queen’_. Goddess, could you imagine? Zelda and me?” He made a performative full-body shiver. “I get a stomach ache just thinking about it.”

Shad was, for a solid, wondrous second, thoroughly impressed. The other man was displaying a phenomenal sense of articulation, and an acute acumen for social and interpersonal understanding. But then, just as suddenly, Shad acknowledged the state of the impression and felt like a fucking heel. Of course, Link was intelligent. He’d shown his wits numerous times over the past few weeks. Why was Shad somehow surprised about it now?

Was it because Shad had long been ruled by his anxieties from the glaring, choking sense of social expectations, and Link had just seemed-- in comparison --so untouchably confident, Shad had just assumed he must not have even noticed them? That had to be it. The swordsman was no idiot. Of the two of them, it was Shad’s internalized, classist superiority which made _him_ the idiot.

“--Which leads us to you,” Link finished.

Shad blinked himself out of his thoughts. “…Ah, excuse me?”

“You’re the exception to the rule, Shad. A commoner, a _male_ commoner, is the one The Great Hero picked? They’ll shit bricks on the day, I tell you what.”

He halfway stumbled, but only for a split second. _‘…On the day,’_ Shad internally parroted, temporarily stricken by the concept.

Link was smiling.

The scholar’s mind began to race ahead of itself.

Meaning, “on the day of debut”, as expected by society. Meaning that Link was going to debut claim of another-- in this case, debut claim of _Shad_ , and openly accept all connotations which come along during such an event. Meaning that Link was actively looking forward to, and planning on, a day where he would present their relationship to the public. _Meaning_ , the Ordonian was going to give people what they thought they wanted, and (judging by his past character) if they reacted poorly, Link would (most likely) tell them to deal with it.

…Which all, in the simplest of terms, meant that Link wanted to keep him.

_‘This is…’_

Shad’s throat felt strangely dry, and clicked as he swallowed. Link didn’t seem to notice. Pinpricks of terrified excitement burned across the scholar’s skin.

_‘This really is real.’_

The awareness was so overwhelming that Shad reflexively tried to protect himself-- unconsciously tried to distance himself from the evidence --by dropping Link’s hand. Shad looked around, mindlessly searching for witnesses.

But the surrounding architecture lit up pathways of familiarity inside his brain.

…They were already at the Malo Mart?

_He’d held The Great Hero’s hand through an entire half of the city!_

Who had seen? Had they passed anyone either of them knew? Surely they must have; Castle Town was _small_. All the walls had eyes. Every door had ears. It’d be one thing if he’d been holding the Ordonian’s hand in the privacy of, say, Telma’s bar, where only the Resistance would know, or during the long, vast emptiness of the wilds; but he’d done it out on the street, thoughtlessly weaving in and out of foot traffic, in front of the goddesses and everybody-- in front of anyone, anyone at all who could pass their terrible judgment.

A fine sheen of nervous sweat broke out over his chest. He felt suddenly like a golden beetle under a magnifying glass; pinned down by a sharp gaze, trapped in the shadow box, just waiting for the sharp sting of the needle to pierce his heart--

“So, I’m thinking dodongo leather, with helmasaurus tips,” Link chattered, stepping forward to push through the Malo Mart front entrance.

The scholar rapidly blinked, desperately trying to rein in his distress. He dazedly followed, barely registering the dinging of the bell above the door, or even what his companion was saying.

“Steel toed is the best bet, especially for all the remote places we’re supposed to be going,” Link continued. “They’ll take a little while to break in, but afterwards, you’ll never need another pair ever again. Dodongo is practically indestructible. Hey, while we’re here, let’s get you some for cold weather, too! Lined in white wolfos fur, I’m thinking…”

Shad only nodded whenever Link spoke to him, still too gripped by sudden emotional gymnastics to trust himself to speak. He focused consciously on a flare of dispassionate logic, clinging desperately to the flatness of the detachment instead of further entertaining his anxiety. He knew that to think about the metaphorical magnifying glass, or to entertain the feeling of the hovering needle, would only make his attempts to breathe that much more difficult. Shad used the moments when Link was turned away to focus on the careful expansion and deflation of his lungs. The simple rhythm of respiration was like a life raft thrown into the ocean of his skittering nerves.

Shad automatically replaced his worn loafers for the new pair of boots Link picked out, and didn’t even think to protest when the swordsman passed over a fistful of orange rupees to the shopkeeper. He barely even noticed how Link dropped his old shoes into a nearby waste bin.

“Hey, you alright?” Link eventually asked, once they were leaving the city. They’d been walking in silence since they’d left the shop. Shad had halfway begun to suspect that his sudden, uncharacteristic silence had gone completely unnoticed. “I should have asked earlier, but I was so excited to go shopping,” the swordsman admitted. “I hope I didn’t just, like, push what I wanted onto you, or something.”

Mild relaxation slightly unwound the tension in his shoulders. “Oh, no, no-- It’s completely fine, old boy,” Shad insisted.

Link didn’t know. Well, he didn’t know with _exactitude_ what Shad had just gone through, however, the blond’s concern was there; offered plainly, and without any hidden tether, like everything Link gave. He would understand, Shad was sure of it.

…But, at what cost? No, admitting to this particular facet of his frailty would only add to the world’s overall perception of his uselessness. Shad knew it was better to act like his quiet was merely product of being bought for, instead of deep-seated self-consciousness rearing its ugly head once more.

“You’re more knowledgeable about wilderness attire than I am,” Shad eventually added, to support the ruse.

In a sudden fit of boldness-- a motion born of his desire to try and physically quash his nerves --Shad shyly reached out and took Link’s hand.

“I… I am eternally grateful,” the scholar added, partially mumbling the sentiment.

The wide smile Link gave was blinding and, for a moment, Shad forgot all of his miseries.

            %

The ancient Zora highway was a meandering path, curving down and out, and up and over the naturally hilly landscape of Northern Hyrule Field. In the distant middle, Shad could see a stone structure arching away from the land, over the final bend of the Zora River. The spires of Hyrule Castle loomed in the south, in the far-off morning mists.

Link pointed, across the entirety of the field rambling below, towards the distant mountain range. “That’s where we need to get to,” he said.

“It looks so close,” Shad commented, adjusting the hang of his knapsack. “And so peaceful.”

“Don’t be fooled,” the swordsman warned. Golden bugs buzzed in a nearby thatch of heather. “It’s at least a three day hike, if we follow the road-- and this is the start of lizalfos territory, so, watch out,” Link said. “They like to hide in the hills.”

Shad thought back to the bestiary sitting on his living room table, a book he’d often thumb through on quiet nights when he just couldn’t look at his father’s journals any more. Lizalfos were an indigenous presence in Hyrule, a natural threat that mostly kept to their ancestral territories in the mountains, and usually didn’t encroach too close to lowland hylian settlements. But the recent twilight had left much of Hyrule in scattered, confused disarray. Many species, oftentimes known to hylians only as remote, far-flung dangers, had been driven from their home environments to clash together in the valleys; in short, far too close to humans.

Also, the book said lizalfos liked to tie knives to the ends of their tails and swing them wildly.

“Okay,” Shad said, reflexively gripping around the hilt of the sword Link had given him, as if there was an aptitude in the hands that made the motion.

Link began to tromp down the hill that spread out from the mouth of the pass from Western Hyrule Field, and Shad quietly followed.

There came a guttural hissing, and as if summoned, a lizalfos warrior came charging up at them from the last stretch of the slope.

Link immediately fell into a fighting stance. “Didn’t think they’d be out this far,” he said loudly, just before the Master Sword met the lizalfos’s scimitar with a _clang_.

Shad hung back, only drawing his own sword out of expectation rather than intention.

“C’mon!” Link barked, glancing over his shoulder to catch Shad’s eyes, before whirling on the lizalfos with a yell.

The scholar felt fixed to where he stood in his boots. Sudden fear surged in his heart-- Memory of advancing, glottal shouts, the pounding of his blood, and the nauseating crack of steel being broken filled his ears. For too long of a second, all he could do was gasp.

But the lizalfos was defeated almost as quickly as it had appeared.

Link stabbed downward, into the thing’s heart, and twisted for good measure. Air escaped the lizalfos’s reptilian mouth in a huff.

The swordsman withdrew his blade, and took a moment to breathe. Dark blue blood dripped from the shining tip of the Master Sword.

“Shad,” Link eventually said, turning to the man in question. “You’re acting like you’re afraid the sword will break again.” The Ordonian’s tone was halfway interrogative, and (probably only felt by Shad) somewhat accusatory.

He blinked. The echo of the sounds of battle gradually faded, but lingered in the depths of his fear. “…I sort of am, old boy,” the scholar slowly admitted.

Link was already walking ahead. Shad, in his distracted absorption, had to rush to fall into step with him again.

“That was a freak accident,” Link assured, once Shad was in his rightful place beside him. “Rusl fixed the sword; it’s better than it was. You shouldn’t be afraid of it anymore.”

 _‘There’s plenty to fear about something sharp swinging in the hands of a moron,’_ Shad’s treacherous mind spat.

Link readjusted the grip of his shield in his less-dominant hand, and twirled the Master Sword over his other palm. “You’ll get it, Shad. Just keep trying,” he insisted. “I promise you.”

He didn’t have the heart to disagree, nor the energy to argue-- Not when the blond had such an honest, earnest look to his eye about the situation. Still, Shad sighed.

“...Alright,” he offered, only just a tad hesitant.

Ever the sun to Shad’s cynical gloom, Link grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

It started raining about an hour later, validating Shad’s defeatist mood. There was one tree in the whole of the field, a big oak with a solid canopy, and the two men curled close together beneath it near the base of the trunk.

“Y’know, usually I’d carry on in this type of weather,” Link commented. The sun shone through the rain and the leaves above, dappling the Great Hero’s garb in bright splashes of sunlight, and dark trickles of rainwater. “Because, y’know, my clothes are magically waterproof. But, with you--”

Shad pulled his legs up to his middle, avoiding an encroaching puddle. His boots were still so new; he didn’t want to ruin them. “You feel the need to stop,” he predicted.

“Yeah.” Link had wrapped an arm around Shad’s back, and after a moment, the scholar felt it tighten; nervousness. “I mean, no, it’s not that you’re… You’re just--”

Rusl’s words repeated in the scholar’s head, and this time, Shad felt no sense of failure. _“He cares about you, Master Shad.”_

Shad swallowed, pressing the flats of his hands firmer against his forehead to try and block trickles of rain from reaching his glasses. “It’s alright, old boy. I understand.”

He could feel when Link turned his head towards him. “You do?”

“I don’t just carry my books out in the open, you know,” Shad began, licking a sluice of rain from his lips. “I wrap them, and then I put them in my knapsack, because I care about what happens to them. You… You like to stop in order to give me a rest, because you care about what happens to me. Because, well… I, I am a different creature, compared to you.”

That nasty little voice whispered sharply at the back of his thoughts: _‘A weakling creature you are, Maidson.’_ Shad chose to ignore it. He peeked his eyes over to the swordsman. Rain on the land was the only sound for a long moment.

“Am I… Am I right?”

Link answered by pressing a soft kiss to the side of Shad’s temple.

            %

The crossing of the field and the climbing of the mountain took, as Link expected, about three days.

Shad watched as his new boots trudged up along the path, kicking small rocks whenever he had the chance. He wasn’t becoming winded, thank goodness, primarily due to the gradual rise of the ridge’s incline. This was not like Death Mountain, which was a nightmare of damnable vertical angles and sudden, unforgiving ledges masquerading as a road.

Link was a handful of paces ahead; quick on his feet, as usual. He stopped on a plateau in the rise and turned back. “You good, Shad?” He called.

Shad raised his head. He took a breath, felt how it came and went easily. “It’s not so high up here, so: yes,” the scholar affirmed, continuing to walk. “I’m doing well.” His calves were straining from climbing the slope, and there was a chafing happening around his knees from wearing the same clothes through two passing rain showers, but. _‘Nothing compared to Death Mountain,’_ Shad thought. _‘I’d rather chafe than suffocate any day.’_

“Well, the cave portion of the highway starts right up there--” Link pointed. “And it’ll be another half day until we reach Zora’s Domain, if we stop to make camp.”

The scholar surmounted the plateau, as well, and stopped beside his companion. Shad wiped oil from the bridge of his nose, and then reperched his glasses. “So, I guess we’re making camp, then, right?” He asked, cleaning off his glove’s fingertips against his trouser.

It was becoming an inside joke between them, the scholar realized with a soft smile, watching as Link himself grinned at the question.

The swordsman reached out and squeezed Shad’s free hand. “Of course.”

They walked over to the mouth of the cave. Shad settled himself down onto a short boulder with a relieved sigh.

“So, what are you feeling like?” Link began to ask, pawing through one of his larger pouches. “I’ve still got some cheese from Ordon in here, and red potion, of course--”

The thought of a mouthful of red potion made Shad salivate. That’d cure his chafing in no time. “Red potion would be--”

He was cut off by the sound of skittering, and a red tektite dropped down from above the cave, chirping angrily. It bent in close to itself, readying to spring up and gouge them with the spines on its legs-- But Link, with an inhuman quickness, had already pulled out the Master Sword and stabbed the creature down against the rock. The tektite spasmed all over in the quick throes of death, and then went still.

Shad stared. “...Let me guess,” he drawled. “Supper?”

Link reached with his free hand into one of his belt pouches and produced a short dagger, and a square fold of leather. He resheathed the Master Sword, spread the leather onto the ground before him, and placed the dead tektite onto the square. He then settled into a cross-legged seat beside it, and clapped his gloves together. “Better than red potion!” He chirped brightly. With a sudden, precise little jerk of his knife, Link began to cut along the thoracic seam of the tektite’s cream-colored belly.

Shad felt his eyes widen as his guts turned. Link didn’t usually clean his… _kills_ , at their campsites. He’d been taking them off some ways away and returning with cleaned bits of meat, often already kebabbed.

The scholar's observational, detached thoughts suggested that maybe this was a behavior of comfort, for the Ordonian; being so used as he was to the wilds. Maybe Link was just getting extremely used to having Shad around to such a point that he didn’t feel the need to divide this aspect of his behavior from Shad’s sight, anymore. The idea made a small blossom of fond warmth unfurl in the redhead’s middle… which was immediately trampled by an ice-cold flinch of nausea as Shad watched Link peel back the glistening outer shell of the tektite, exposing a swath of shiny, pink flesh beneath.

The Ordonian didn’t seem to notice how pale Shad could feel himself becoming.

“You want a leg, or a body chunk?” Link asked brightly, looking up.

 _‘Body chunk?_ ’ Shad openly shivered, much to Link’s smirking delight. “I-I believe it’s known as a thorax,” Shad corrected. “And, I would prefer it if you just burned it beyond recognition, please, and thank you,” the scholar told primly, uncrossing his legs to prop his right knee over his left, clasping his hands together in his lap. The squeezing of his fingers was a good distraction from the queasiness in his stomach.

Link chuckled. The wet sounds of deshelling echoed off the walls of the cave, and Shad winced. “Can’t eat it if you can see what it is, huh?” The swordsman teased. “Explains why you’ve not had any problems with my cooking,” he commented.

“My mother claims I have vegetarian tendencies.” He winced again as Link started cracking off the legs of the tektite-- _crack, crack, **snap**_. Goddess, it sounded like twigs snapping. Shad cleared his throat as a means of actively grabbing ahold of himself before nausea could fully climb into his middle. “And, that’s because your ‘cooking’, old boy, exists largely along the lines of _‘tear apart, stab onto stick, jam into fire’_ ,” he countered.

Link barked out a loud laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he grinned. “I make mean soups, too,” he offered, joking.

 ** _Snap. Snap_**. Shad swallowed. Ugh, that sound was stressful. “Oh, soups, really?” Shad challenged, feeling tense. “Is that just Linkish for _‘throw together, jam into fire, except this time the stick is a bowl’_?”

The Ordonian stopped what he was doing, leaning forward over his own lap, shoulders shaking with quiet mirth. “Shad, my gods,” he eventually managed to gasp.

“What?”

“You’re so _funny!”_

            %

The cave went for miles, but was spacious enough to not inspire claustrophobia.

Shad had taken to counting the different striations in the surrounding rock as the halo of his lantern’s light passed over, and Link had long ago set about whistling.

 _‘Good thing he can carry a tune,’_ Shad thought to himself, smiling slightly as the Ordonian switched his song for a jauntier melody.

Hours passed. Eventually, the patterns in the rock began to show more pronounced fossils, and the random petroglyphs started to cluster together into more cohesive murals. The sounds of rushing water pricked at Shad’s ears, just as he registered that the drawings were starting to be replaced by deep, relieved carvings in the stone.

The scholar paused. Absently, he heard Link slow to a stop, as well.

“Is that…?” Shad started, swinging his lantern around to see his companion.

Link’s spreading grin was handsome in the orange lamplight. “We’re close!”

The passage grew wider as they carried on, vaulting broadly overhead until the rock showed clear signs of having been tamed into something closer to a corridor than a cave. There were even pillars.

The sound of moving water was overpowering, and roared in Shad’s ears-- But, Zora’s Domain was a beautiful sight for sore eyes overtired with the sight of shadowed stone.

Shad walked slowly to the edge of the cave’s end, marveling at the sight beyond. A waterfall that might even dwarf Death Mountain fell in a powerful deluge to a vast green basin below. The shapes of distant swimming zora flashed in veins of silvery blue in the dark depths of the water.

It was breathtaking. “Oh, _wow_ ,” Shad sighed. Lake Hylia was nothing compared to this.

Link nudged the scholar’s shoulder with one of his own. “Yeah, I know. Felt the same way when I got here after I cleared out the twilight from this province,” the swordsman admitted.

“It’s so… _blue_ ,” Shad murmured, still in awe. “I’d always thought Lake Hylia was as clear and true as the color could be, but…” Heat pulsed in his eyes with the threat of tears. For a moment, he felt deeply that he was in the realm of his maker, in the humbling presence of ancient sincerity, and beauty.

“Wow,” was all he could say.

He didn’t notice the soft-eyed expression Link passed over his face, but he did feel the gentleness in the swordsman’s grip when it slipped over his nearest palm.

“C’mon,” Link said at last. He gestured towards the rising hallway, branching off to their left. “The Zora village is this way.”

The way that Shad was adamant about refusing to stop and marvel at the architecture of Hyrule Castle, whenever he was within its walls, was antithesis to how he craned his neck around now. He knew that he was gawping, but he couldn’t help it. Everything was so beautiful, in an untamed, rough sort of way; like the water that eventually touched every corner of the region.

Shad knew that the zora were a largely impassive species, although there were great tales of their hospitable friendliness dotted like pearls throughout Hyrule’s history. But apparently, around The Great Hero, however, those stereotypes of cold-blooded, ichthyopic stoicism seemed as uncharacteristic and misplaced as anything. Every zora on the way to the throneroom beamed at Link as the two men passed; some even went out of their way to stop what they were doing just to excitedly greet the Ordonian. Link showcased a polite patience with all of them, a sort of easygoing, accessible gallantry Shad often only witnessed around the most mannered masters of etiquette.

The warm politesse only served to string yet another cord of fond sentimentality in the already enamored chambers of the scholar’s heart.

King Ralis was no different when he caught sight of the approaching swordsman.

“ _Link!”_ The young monarch’s affect radiated pure joy as he climbed down from his throne, in a beeline for Link.

The Ordonian smiled and waved a greeting. “Hey, your majesty.”

“None of that, Hero,” Ralis playfully admonished. Link chuckled.

For a knee-jerking second, Shad-- standing “third-wheel” beside the two men --felt something halfway towards irrationally jealous.

 _‘But is Link even into fish, though?’_ His treacherous inside commentary suddenly posited, like a spectator of himself. _‘Wait, how would that even work?’_

Shad felt himself color as his mind ran away on that particularly interesting tangent.  

Link looked over at him. “You alright, Shad?”

The scholar cleared his throat and blinked rapidly to clear his thoughts. “I--I’m fine,” he assured, voice slightly high.

“Okaaay,” Link drawled, returning his gaze to the eager attention of the zora monarch. “Well, Ralis, we’re not here on vacation. We’re here to get something for Queen Zelda.”

“What is it?” Ralis asked. He watched as Shad shouldered down his knapsack and rummaged inside for the illuminated manuscript. For a second, the magnificent golden sheen of its pages flashed in the torchlight and threw a shine against the wall.

“We’ve come for the sapphire, my liege,” Shad announced, turning to the appropriate page and then switching the book around so that the zora man could see for himself. “The ancient treasure of your people, bestowed by Nayru eons ago.”

Ralis’s indulgent smile fell in increments as he read the page. “Oh…” He murmured.

“Your royal guard at the water temple in Lake Hylia mentioned you having something similar?” Link encouraged.

Ralis went still. He seemed to be in deep thought.

Finally, he gestured for the two of them to fall into step behind him, and he started to make his way through a small corridor branching off from the throneroom. The hallway terminated in a single, thin room, which was lit by dozens of candles. As Shad eyed the attractive statue and altar of Nayru that was clearly the entire reason for this area, he came to the slow realization that it was a shrine dedicated to the zora’s late queen-- for Ralis’s murdered mother. A bewitching, unsmiling relief of the woman in question was even wrought into the stone behind the altar.

She seemed to be staring through them with black carved eyes. Demurely, the scholar dropped his gaze from the portrait, and tried to focus on the living.

Ralis walked over to the altar and opened the decorative seashell chest that dominated the space, and withdrew a smaller box. It was pink, clearly delicate, and with the way Ralis held it between his hands, something of great sentimental importance.

"This is the last of my mother's possessions," Ralis told. The jewelry box opened with a metallic _click_. “But... I guess it never really belonged to her, did it?” The young king muttered.

A somber mood blanketed the room. Shad almost felt unworthy to be in witness of this solemn, sacred place that did not belong to him.

Ralis hinged backwards the top of the box, and pulled out a trio of large, fine cut sapphires fixed together in gold. The Zora's Sapphire caught the candlelight and threw a thousand blue, mirrored reflections against the walls.

The young kind held the gem out to Link. “Please, Link. Please, take it.”

This was the entire reason for their trip, but Link was hesitant. “Ralis…”

“My people owe you a great debt, Hero," the monarch intoned, voice level yet serious. "Since you were in service of your queen when you saved my life, and the lives of my subjects, it is the least I can do to offer you our last treasure.”

            %

“That was… intense,” Link commented, once they were outside of the village.

“Yes,” Shad agreed carefully. The sad gaze of the young zora king as he waved at the two travelers’ leaving played on a pitiful loop in the scholar’s recent memory.

Link whistled once. “Poor Ralis,” he murmured. And then, like flicking a switch, he brightened. The blond turned to the taller man, and raised his eyebrows. “Feel like taking a dip?”

Shad blinked. “Hmm?”

Link threw his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing towards the zora basin, and the waterfall crashing below. “Come on, Shad,” he urged. “Let’s go swimmin’.”

Shad took a handful of seconds to think. “…That _does_ sound good,” he agreed. His feet, slightly sore from wearing stiff new boots, chimed in their agreement.

“Right?”

“Plus, it’ll essentially be bathing,” the scholar added, perking up at the idea. “Goddess knows I smell.”

“Yeah, about that,” Link vagued, deliberately looking everywhere but at Shad. “I wasn’t going to say anything…”

The redhead bristled. _“Oh, really?”_

Link just threw back his head and laughed.

            %

There was a semi-hidden bower at the base of the waterfall basin, and that is where the two decided to have their impromptu bath.

Shad scrubbed over his skin, sitting cross-legged in the shallows. He took extra care to try and exfoliate with his fingertips the chafing around his knees, and was pleased to feel the thin layer of grime about his neck and shoulders gradually get washed away.

Link was about ten feet off, swimming out in the basin proper; paddling around in his nudity without a care in the world.

Shad watched the tawny flank of his beau flicker through the surface of the water for one long, engrossed second, before his brain caught up to the source of his absorption and he felt a powerful blush spread across his skin. The scholar dunked his head forward into the water to scrub at his hair instead of giving his anxiety time to analyze just why he was blushing, or to think about just what parts of Link were being lapped at by the water.

He returned to the bower and quickly toweled off with his sleeping bag liner, sponging off droplets from his glasses after stepping quickly into a spare set of trousers. He raked his fingers through his hair backwards over his crown, and gave a pleased sigh.

“You done already?”

Shad turned, and promptly looked upwards at the grassy ceiling of the bower. “ _Pants!_ ” He managed to squeak.

There was a husky chuckle, and the sound of Link shifting through the bundle of his chain maille and tunics. Another second went by, and then there was a roughsoft hand gently pulling down on Shad’s jaw. The scholar slowly looked down. Link had pulled on his leggings, but nothing else. Rivulets of water dripped down his chest from the dark wetness of his hair, and Shad tried not to stare too openly.

The swordsman stepped in close to the taller man and took a long, slow sniff of Shad’s neck. He blew out a breath that tingled over the redhead’s skin, and sighed, sounding content.

“Mmm… much better,” he murmured.

“I-- I would hope so,” Shad stuttered, afraid to register as to why he still felt so nervous about being so close to Link’s bare skin.

Link huffed a laugh, and then pressed his lips to Shad’s own. The expected rhythm of kissing was something Shad knew he could follow, and so he did. But he wasn’t expecting Link to walk him backwards until he was pressed against the wall of the bower, and he certainly did not predict that the blond would take the initiative to settle between the scholar’s thighs and roll his hips forward to grind a sweet rhythm in that absorbed, attentive way Link did everything.

Shad hissed a praise into the kiss, and Link licked at the roof of his mouth before pulling back only an inch or so.

"I've never done anything like this before," Link told.

"Re--Really? You're, _ah_ ,” Shad swallowed thickly as the press of the other man’s groin made the most delightful pressure. “Y-you're not bad.”

Link nuzzled the side of Shad's throat. His hands had made homes for themselves on Shad’s rear. "What can I say," he murmured. "You, _ngh_ , you inspire me."

Without preamble, Link unzipped and pulled Shad’s cock from his pants and the pulled down his own leggings just enough to take them both in hand, stroking them together until Shad was stuttering needily against Link’s shoulder, and coming with a choked gasp-- Link following soon after while sucking a mark onto the soft skin underneath Shad’s chin.

Later, when he's calmed down, and Link's pulled him down into a lazy recline against the wall, Shad finds the courage to ask: "So... Never?"

"Hm?"

"You've never...”

"Well, I'm not completely clueless," Link says, and to that, Shad can’t help his snort. The blond smirks. "Me and Fado, y'know; we tried some stuff. We were never _together_ , but he was there, and we usually had ranch duty at the same time, and--" There was a vague wave of his boxy hand. "Things sort'a happened," he finished lamely.

"Proximity attraction," Shad states knowingly.

"Nah, it wasn't attraction. I wasn't into him. I was only curious. I mean, live around animals long enough, and you see plenty of things. Started wondering if any of that could translate, y'know, into somethin' between two people."

Shad nodded. He never received The Talk, himself, and it sounded like Link didn't, either. Growing up in a farming community probably made up plenty for the blond's educational deficit.

"Rusl and Uli are good people," Link continued, "but they wouldn't've understood-- I mean, I don't think it would've gone over well if I'd been like: _'Hey, my surrogate parents, I can't stop thinking about touching another guy's dick, do you have any tips on how I could do that and not get punched?'_ Y'know. It would've embarrassed them."

Shad had to pull off his glasses and wipe his eyes because he was laughing too hard to reply.

"Fado was nice, and I guess he had some curiosities of his own. Overall, it wasn't bad. He's a sweet guy."

The scholar made a neutral noise, tracing a fingertip over the defined ridges of the other man's abdomen.

"...I think he and Ilia are going to marry," Link suddenly divulged. "Now that I'm not in Ordon all the time, Fado's the only other bachelor. Mayor Bo likes Fado, too. It'd be a good match."

One of Link’s hands was softly stroking over Shad’s damp crown, and the scholar tried to focus on its lazy rhythm as he gathered his courage once more.

"...Did you and Ilia ever...?"

It took the swordsman another moment to answer.

"She wanted to, kind of. But I didn't." Link blew out a deep breath that puffed his cheeks for a moment. "I think that's when it started getting weird between us. Right before the twilight shit happened, things had actually started to get back to normal. Like, we were friends again. I miss that."

Shad nodded, absently and without intent to further the subject. He snuggled in closer to Link’s side, resolving to enjoy the remainder of their afterglow before his anxieties about their compromising position in a somewhat public place could bother him.

A sudden chuckle vibrated Link’s chest against Shad’s ear.

"...But she did show me her tits once.”

            %

Shad stared at the sapphire sitting in his gloved palm as the castellan knocked against the queen’s study door. This time around, Link was accompanying Shad’s return to the monarch.

“Never been back here before,” the swordsman commented, looking around.

Shad turned to look at him, eyebrows high. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Link answered, shrugging. The castellan brushed past him and trotted off, back down the corridor. “Is this where you’ve been coming--?”

He was cut off by the door suddenly swinging outwards. Zelda appeared in the doorway, her gloved hand gripped around the massive handle. She wore a long brown cloak which Shad hadn’t seen before, and a frown he was starting to know well.

The scholar automatically straightened.

“You’ve arrived,” the queen intoned.

“Yes, we have,” Shad agreed brightly, the sapphire held close to his chest. Link didn’t speak.

Zelda’s eyes seemed luminous in the firelight that spilled out from her study; the glow cast the queen in harsh shadow, and left her face unreadable.

Shad noticed this effect, but didn’t sense any cause for alarm. He coughed into his unoccupied fist, gathering himself, and took a step forward.

Zelda’s sharp gaze followed his movement. She was as unmoving as stone.

Behind the scholar, Link had gone absolutely still.

With a sunny smile, Shad held out the Zora’s Sapphire to the queen. “Your majesty,” he began, voice lilting with pride. “This is--”

The sapphire was snatched from his hand.

“Thank you,” Zelda said. There wasn’t any of the usual modest warmth in her tone. She held the sapphire in her fist. The gemstone burned a bright blue against the dark shade of her cloak.

Shad blinked, but decided to carry on despite the cool reception. He clasped his hands behind himself, and rocked on his heels, pulling his shoulders back just a tad more to even out his posture. “Well, my lady, I’ve been rereading the manuscript,” he announced. “And I believe the next relics to gather should be the--”

“Medallions,” Zelda suddenly stated.

Shad nodded, unfazed by the interjection. “Medallions, yes,” the scholar agreed. “Said to be manifestations of the ancient sages’ goddess-granted powers. Now,” Shad chattered, growing excited. “I’ve devised a plan for going about--"

“Yes, yes,” Zelda interrupted, quickly waving the hand that held the sapphire. “Go about it however you like, just bring them to me.”

The queen was beginning to turn away, bringing the door to close behind her. Shad craned his neck to keep her in his eyeline. “Which one should we go for first--?” He tried to ask.

“It doesn’t matter,” came the queen’s dismissive reply. “Just bring them to me,” she repeated.

The door closed heavily into its jamb, and the sound of a large, solid lock being thrown into place echoed in the corridor after it.

Shad blinked. “… _Well_ ,” he chirped, turning to Link, who hadn’t moved during the entire exchange. “Shall we, then?”

            %

“Shad--" Link suddenly said, putting a hand around the scholar's elbow to keep him near. He'd been silent for the long minutes since they'd left Zelda. They were now in the grand hall, just outside the throneroom. "Hold on a second," he urged.

There was a strange undertone to the swordsman's low voice, like he was mentally testing new ground.

Shad paused, literally with one foot in the air. The scholar turned completely towards the other man, eying him curiously. "…Link?"

He'd never seen the other man look so unsure. Link seemed spooked, in a weird way.

"...There's something not right about Zelda," Link finally said.

Shad furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Link’s blue eyes were alert. "Couldn't you tell?"

"Well…” Shad trailed off. "Maybe she _did_ seem quite tired, but, I've never been queen. I imagine the stress alone would eventually get to even the most resilient of people."

"No, no; I don't think that's it." Link stepped closer, breath fanning over Shad's jaw as he quietly, tightly insisted: "Even when this world was covered in twilight and she was being held prisoner in a tower, Zelda never had this... _energy_ about her." His mouth set into a grim line. "It's sinister."

Privately, Shad felt a stab of threat crawl through his chest before he consciously quashed it _. 'Of course, he'd have a sort of intimacy with the monarch, you dolt. He's the kingdom's champion.'_ "Are you sure?"

"It's like there's something screaming in my gut," Link muttered. "Shad… It's the same feeling I had when I was fighting Zant. It feels _wrong_.” His eyes darted restlessly around them, as if searching for enemies. “If I could shift, I bet you big money I'd find something with my wolf senses."

"Your instincts _are_ amazing, old boy," Shad murmured, already slightly curled inward as he analyzed his thoughts.

A snort came from the swordsman. "Damn right, they are."

"But let's not jump to any conclusions," the scholar advised. "We've been given a new chapter to fill for our quest-- Let's just, let's focus on finding these medallions, okay? You never know; our dear queen might've just been overexerting herself lately."

Link hesitantly nodded, though he still seemed unconvinced.

When it seemed like the blond needed extra convincing, Shad gently took the swordsman’s nearest hand and loosely held it between them. "Benefit of the doubt, my love,” he proposed.

There was a beat, where Link seemed to be openly torn between two paths, before he blew out a lip-popping breath and his shoulders lost some of their earlier tension. "Yeah, you're right. Maybe I've just been conditioned to look for something to fight."

The scholar made a noncommittal noise in his throat. Link squeezed Shad’s hand, before suddenly brightening. "Hey, that’s the first time you’ve called me ‘my love’. I like that.”

“Really?” Shad smiled. “I--”

Loud, deliberate footsteps sounded behind them at the same moment that Link's face fell. Shad turned to look behind them, and just caught sight of Queen Zelda walking away.

"…Had she been listening to us?" Shad wondered, mildly bewildered.

Link's hand unconsciously clenched tighter at Shad’s own. "Benefit of the doubt?" he muttered.

A creeping sensation of languageless worry gnawed a new hole inside Shad's middle, and all he could do was nod.

            %

One of Link's hands had quickly made a home for itself on Shad's lower back as they descended the massive staircase leading to Castle Town proper. He could feel tension radiating from the blond, his hand a warm, protective reminder against Shad's shirt.

"Link, are you alright--?"

"Let's just get out of here," the swordsman said. His voice matched the aura of his growing mood. Shad smartly didn’t comment, and allowed Link to guide him through the city towards the stables. He stepped back and let the swordsman saddle both of their mounts, only stepping in when he could tell it was absolutely necessary.

Everything about the other man relayed stress, a wound-tight sort of agitation, and Shad tried not to let his nerves mirror the disquiet.

Link directed Epona through the eastern gate, and Shad dutifully squeezed Shero’s sides to have the gelding follow.

At the end of the drawbridge was a contingent of strangers, all of them with short swords drawn, and all of them standing in a line as a means to block the path. The one in the middle stepped forward just as Epona and Shero were drawn to a stop, a few paces away.

"Halt,” the man boomed. “You are the warrior Link, and the scholar Shad?” He asked in a tone that said he already knew the answer. Shad frowned. The man spoke Hylian with an accent he’d never heard before. _‘Come to think of it,’_ the scholar observed. _‘I’ve never seen the insignias on his clothing before, either.’_

Shad reached up to mindlessly adjust his glasses, privately puzzling over the sight of the… foreigner? “Yes,” he confirmed. “What of it?”

From the corner of his eye, Shad saw Link go still; a lack of motion the scholar now understood to mean that the swordsman was very, very concerned and was paying very, very close attention to the current unfolding events.

The strange man eyed Shad in an obvious once-over that made the scholar’s skin crawl. “You are to be taken into custody by order of the queen,” he said finally.

" _Order of the Queen--?"_ Link’s tone was explosively offended, although he was still motionless. Shad worriedly looked over at the other man. He could tell Link was reaching the very end of his rope.

"That is ridiculous,” Shad countered. Shero stepped in place, picking up on his rider’s tension. “We've done nothing wrong," the scholar added, shortening the reins in his grip.

"Get off the horse," another of the contingent demanded, voice rough and abrupt. His accent was thicker than the first man’s. "Or we're pulling you off."

For some reason, Shad didn’t feel nervous. Instead, he felt himself growing testy, and frustrated. "You're not castle guard," he suddenly declared. “Nor are you city watch. Who hired you?"

The strangers started to circle the horses. “Get off of the horse,” the second man repeated.

“Who hired you?” Shad, in turn, repeated. He demanded: “Who do you work for?”

"That's enough," the first man snapped. His sword gleamed in the sunlight as he gestured with it towards Shero. "Get the redhead."

The moment was interrupted by the tell-tale metallic slide of the Master Sword being unsheathed. Epona whinnied, ears pricked flat against her skull, and reared in front of Shero. Link held the Master Sword in one hand and expertly drew up on his mare’s reins with his other, directing her kicking hooves towards the apparent contingent leader.

 “Touch him, and I’ll kill you,” Link thundered.

The stranger jumped back, and so did the others. Suddenly, their having swords didn’t seem to matter much in the face of a warrior who most likely wouldn’t hesitate to make good on his threat.

Epona dropped back down and snorted, shaking her head angrily.

Shad stared wide-eyed, frozen in his seat.

But the spell only lasted for a handful of seconds, before the contingent leader came back to himself, and glowered. “Don’t just stand there!” He roared _. “Get them!”_

Shero reared away from the sudden battle, and it was all Shad could do to hold onto the saddle horn and pray they weren’t going to fall off of the drawbridge. He watched as Epona lunged for one of the men, biting him through her bridle as her master swung his sword at another. Men started to fall-- over the sides of the bridge, in an effort to get away, or they fell beneath the Master Sword.

When there was a hole, a gap in the now scattered strangers, Link turned in his saddle and yelled at Shad. “Let’s go!”

Without thinking, the scholar squeezed his ankles tight and Shero lunged forward into a gallop behind Epona.

Link didn’t slow down until Castle Town was barely a dot in the distance behind them.

“What was _that?”_ Shad breathed, once they were stopped. “Who were those men?”

The Master Sword, still held in the swordsman’s grip, gleamed with ethereality-- where it wasn’t dripping with blood, that is. “I don’t _know_ ,” Link said tightly. “But something is wrong. And, I bet you all the rupees from here to the desert that those guys were sent by Zelda right after she left listening to us.”

“…You think so?” Shad’s middle gave a nervous clench.

Link’s nod was grim. “I almost want to say that I _know_ so. I feel it,” he insisted. He sheathed the Master Sword, and held onto Epona’s reins with both hands.

A thought sparked. “We need to find those medallions,” Shad said. He remembered the queen’s urgency about getting them, and the nervousness in his gut clenched again. “I don’t know why, but, we absolutely must.”

“Not to give to Zelda,” Link stated.

Shad paused. It took everything within him, every loyal fibre of his being, to come to terms with this unforeseen change in their (now unclear) quest.

There was something wrong with the queen. He could see that, now. It was probably not a good idea to bring her any more of the treasures hidden around Hyrule. It was known that the things she sought had power to them; Shad wondered, would she--?

“…No,” He eventually agreed, looking over at his companion. “I suppose not.”

Link grunted, nodding. “I have an idea,” he suddenly said.

“Yes?”

“Let’s split up--”

A huge leaden weight dropped into Shad’s gut.

“--Cover more ground,” Link continued. “Get the medallions easier.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Shad blurted, blushing instantly, but not caring in the slightest. In his head, he privately amended: _‘I don’t want you to leave me.’_ The idea of going off into the wilds alone, without Link, was overwhelmingly terrifying.

“Hey, hey,” Link becalmed. He urged Epona closer to Shero so he could reach out and touch Shad, settling one hand on the side of Shad’s neck. “It’ll be alright,” he promised. “I don’t want you going anywhere dangerous; maybe just back to Faron.”

“Faron,” Shad repeated. The tension he felt at the thought of going anywhere without Link lessened at the prospect of returning to that beautiful forest-- but only slightly.

“You could handle going back through the forest temple, couldn’t you?” Link asked. “Remember that one section the book said wasn’t important, or something? You could look there. And, hey, it won’t be for very long. We’ve already got the Fire Medallion,” Link casually pointed out.

Shad froze. He stared at the other man. “… _Pardon?”_

With a sheepish smile, Link reached into one of his pouches and, after a moment, produced a round, flat thing that shone like fire in the sunlight. Shad stared, his fingers itching to touch, to catalogue, to _know_.

Link must have seen the naked desire on the redhead’s face, because he passed the medallion over without hesitating. Shad was already struggling the illuminated manuscript up and open across his lap.

“Found it when I found the ruby,” Link admitted. Shad was flipping pages with one hand, the medallion clutched in his other, and didn’t respond. "Though, honestly, I didn't think it was really so important,” the swordsman added. “I mean, I _felt_ it had power, but... it seems so harmless. I just thought it was neat.”

“It’s made from the powers of those blessed by Din, of course it has power,” Shad informed, reading from a passage outlining the depths of the magics that composed the medallion. He finished, and then stared at the thing where it engulfed his palm. “Zelda’s eyes were so… sharp, when she was talking about these,” he murmured. In hindsight, Shad could plainly see the danger.

He snorted to himself. _‘And to think, I was going to brush it all off that she was only tired.’_

With a sigh, Shad closed the manuscript and passed the medallion back to Link. “Well, alright,” he conceded. “As long as I don’t have to venture up Death Mountain again,” he tried to joke.

Link’s mollifying return smile was a balm on the scholar’s uneasy nerves. “Absolutely not.”

Despite his anxiety, Shad snorted, and rolled his eyes. “So, Faron-- Right? I-Is that where I should go?”

Link’s gloved hand fell to Shad’s forearm and stroked the skin there kindly. “Yes, my love,” he smiled, closed-lipped and soft. “You can _do_ this,” he insisted.

Shad just breathed. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes. Yes, I-- I can do this.”

“I’m going to go to Lake Hylia and go to the lakebed temple-- Actually go _in_ , this time,” Link decided. “The medallion has to be in there, if there’s any sort of pattern to follow, here.”

Shad nodded. And then he nodded again. And then he couldn’t stop nodding. “O-Okay,” was all he could manage to speak. His fists curled over Shero’s reins until they were white-knuckled and tense.

Link’s warm hand returned to the side of the scholar’s neck, and felt to him like an immediate soothe.

 _“You can do this, Shad,”_ the swordsman stressed. And then he leaned over in his saddle and pressed a kiss to the other’s mouth. He pulled back, and made sure to catch Shad’s eyes.

“Meet me in Kakariko,” Link ordered. “In two week’s time. Here--” He unlatched one of his larger pouches, and passed it to Shad. The scholar held onto it like his life was depending on it. “--There’s plenty of supplies in there,” Link told. “Plus, all of your things from out of your duffle. You’ll be fine, Shad.”

Before Shad could try and say anything-- a goodbye, a sentimentality, _anything_ to delay the inevitable --Link grabbed up the end of one of Epona’s reins and used it like a whip against the meat of Shero’s backside. The gelding jumped, and then took off at a quick trot.

It was all Shad could do to direct the horse to go south, and to not look back at where he knew Link was watching him go.

            %

It took all of two weeks for Shad to find the medallion, and then to get to Kakariko as fast as poor old Shero would carry him. Shad boarded the gelding at the inn, said a breathless hello to Renado, and affixed himself onto the front porch of the inn, in perfect view of the mouth of the village.

But the sun went down. Link never showed.

-%-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW NOTE 25/1/2019 - I WROTE THE REST OF THE CHAPTER ALL IN ONE DAY IT IS NOT BETA'D IT PROBABLY SUCKS BUT PLEASE ENJOY!!!  
> \---
> 
> I based a lot of Shad's experience with anxiety on my own experience with anxiety. It's a consumptive, gaslighting business that destroys your ability to think clearly or function like normal, and I really wanted to portray it believably. And, Shad-- being so introverted and self-conscious --has a lot of it.
> 
> Also, for those of you who haven't figured it out by now: "Glad Man Singing" is a song, by Iron & Wine. Each chapter is titled from one of the song's lyrics (they're in order, too!) I HIGHLY recommend listening to the song at some point, just so's you can get the "feel" of it compared to the "feel" of reading this fic. I picked that song because... It just felt like a journey, y'know? It felt epic. And, what I've got planned for our dear scholar for the rest of this fanfic could only be described as A Journey. So, enjoy! :)


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